


Become Alive

by PidgeTheCat17



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Android Hank Anderson, Angst, Anxious Connor (Detroit: Become Human), But he comes back, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Connor is nice to androids, Depressed Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Hank has it pronouns for a bit, Human Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Suicidal Thoughts, but connor changes this, no beta we die like men, reverse au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:07:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 20,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26067727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PidgeTheCat17/pseuds/PidgeTheCat17
Summary: On paper, Lieutenant Connor Reika is successful; he's one of the youngest to reach his rank at the DPD, with a great solve rate. In reality, Connor is hanging by threads as he struggles against his past, surviving the day only through his (many) unhealthy coping mechanisms.HK800 is new to the world, it's view of humans consisting only of insults and hatred. When it's assigned to investigate the recent surge in deviancy, it meets Connor, and learns there is more to humans than it thought.As Connor and HK800 investigate, they grow close, and through their newfound relationship both learn what it is to live.
Relationships: Hank Anderson/Connor, Upgraded Connor | RK900/Gavin Reed
Comments: 30
Kudos: 138





	1. $”&111¥£+11#^£•111$1%

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, this is my first ao3 fanfic! I love this AU so much, and while there are SO many amazing stories about it, there were just some scenes I wanted to read but could never find so I decided to just write them myself. Also, this story will not be an exact copy of the game. The overarching plot line, cases and so on are the same, but things like names, dialogue, small details, and parts of scenes are not the same. This is part laziness(I don't want to cross reference every detail) and also creative liberty. Thanks for reading!

HK800 has only been online for three months and it has already come to the conclusion that humans are irritating. 

“Didn’t know they made old androids,” they said. 

“Watch where you're going, bot!” They yelled. 

“Move it, plastic,” they sneered. 

These comments would be somewhat bearable if it wasn’t for the consequences that went with them. HK800 just needed to complete its mission, a mission given to it by the very people now making it impossible to accomplish it in a timely fashion. 

Lieutenant Rieka, for example. Cyber life had sent HK800 specifically to help him investigate, but when it arrived at the station the man was nowhere to be found. After spending seconds of valuable time scanning all the faces in the building for him, it then had to ask around for the Lieutenant. Even this simple task was made painstakingly slow when the first two people it asked simply ignored it, and the third had made HK800 fetch him coffee! What is wrong with these people? 

Thankfully, the fourth officer HK800 asked instructed it to check the nearby alley ways, and if Connor wasn’t there, he was at his favorite smoke shop. Now here HK800 was, an hour later, having looked in every alley way and now loitering in front of a store with a neon sign advertising ‘cigarettes, spirits, and more!’ in the window. 

On the door is a sign prohibiting androids from entering, and HK800 begins to calculate the percentage of risk it’s taking by ignoring the sign before it realizes it really doesn’t care nor does it’s mission. With that, the android pushes into the shop, it’s nasal sensors immediately detecting a high concentration of tobacco and marijuana in the air. The shop is empty except for the cashier, who gives HK800 a glare before it can even step forward. 

“Can’t you read? No androids allowed,” the man sneers. 

“I assure you my optical components are in perfect condition,” HK800 responds, ignoring the urge to flip the counter between the two; unfortunately that would only delay its mission further. “I’m looking for Lieutenant Rieka. You might know him by Connor Rieka.”

The man seems taken aback but stands his ground. “Leave before I call the police.”

“I am the police, sir.” It stepped forward and leaned over the man in a way his program said was intimidating. “Now, tell me where the Lieutenant is, or I’ll be the one calling the police to notify them of your lack of marijuana selling permit.” 

“That won’t be necessary.” HK800 swerves to face the new voice. It belongs to a man, so young in features that it was slightly surprised to find it was the Lieutenant. His shirt is a very aesthetically unpleasing stripped patterned that’s almost loud enough to distract the android from the healing bruise on his cheek. HK800 estimates it to be about a day old, made by a large fist. He seems to be shivering slightly, as if he’s been out in the cold, and HK800 infers there must be a smoking area out back, which it confirms by looking up the buildings blueprints. “Hi, I’m Connor, or the Lieutenant.” 

It’s Connors politeness that first throws HK800 off. The hand the man offers only pushes it over the edge into suspicion. It had never had a conversation with a human that went past orders or insults, nevertheless had a hand offered to it to shake. Thankfully HK800’s social protocols start up without thought and it reaches out to return the gesture. It’s still skeptical, though, and answers with a simple “HK800” as to not distract its processors from picking every detail of the Lieutenant apart. 

“May I ask why you’re looking for me?” There it is again, that unbiased tone; not rude, pushy or commanding. It puts HK800 on edge. 

“Connor,” the man behind the counter interjects. “You know I’m cool with you hanging out back but androids are bad for business.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Connor sighs but nods and grabs a jacket off a shelf in the corner. “Wouldn’t want to scare off all your lovely customers.” He waves at the empty shop. 

“Oh shut up, jerk,” the cashier grunts. “Try and stay alive another week, will ya?” 

“See you when I see you, Andre.” Connor waves as he walks out, Hank following suit. The android notes how Connor avoided responding to the second half. “Now,” he says once they’d left the shop and are making their way down the street. “Why are you looking for me?” As he talks the man pulls a cigarette from his back pocket and a lighter from his front, quickly lighting one between his lips and taking a drag. 

“Cyber life sent me to ‘aid your investigation of a recent string of murders’,” it quotes, still focused on what the single loose lock of his brown hair might mean. 

“To be honest, I have no idea what you’re talking about, but you look pretty official to me… what’s your name again?” 

“My unit number is HK800,” it’s code spits out. 

“Why yes that’s pretty obvious from that.” Connor gestures to the bold text across the androids jacket with one hand and brings the cigarette to his mouth with the other. “I meant your name. You can’t expect me to call you HK… whatever.” 

“I don’t have a name,” it replies shortly. This man was really confusing it’s systems. “If you must I can register a name you give me in my system.”

The human thinks this over for a second, inhaling and exhaling smoke twice before spreading. “How about Hank?”

“Sure.” The human smiles too widely for the situation. It was just something else to be called. 

“Now that that’s settled, I have one question-” Hank cuts him off, already having anticipated this, and begins to list off answers to its most commonly received questions. 

“Yes my hair is grey, no I’m not old, I was merely created this way to-“ this time Hank is the one to be cut off. 

“To fit in better with other detectives and seem more human to aid in interrogations, I already know that.” Connor rolls his eyes and flicks the side of his cigarette. “What I want to know about is this case you mentioned. I haven’t heard anything about a new serial killer on the loose.”

Hank's systems take a second to catch up, which is 80 milliseconds longer than usual. If it could conclude one thing for certain about the Lieutenant, it was his ability to do exactly what the android didn’t expect. 

“One of the murders is currently an active crime scene,” Hank responds after recovering. “I can explain on the way to conserve time.” Without another word the unit turns a sharp 180 degrees and begins walking back, past the shop, and towards the crime scene. It’s almost to busy shorting it’s new observations of Lieutenant Rieka to notice the human stumbling over his own feet and dropping his cigarette to notice - almost. 

{visual memory file saved for review}


	2. &%*/22;2-¥*•\222^>222$

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor and Hank investigate the victim's house. Connor may or may not have no regard for his safety.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay a second chapter. Thanks for reading!

By the time they arrived at the crime scene Conner was fully caught up and fully awake. If he was honest with himself, he first thought the entire situation had been a dream. A textbook bear, come to collect him? Sounds like the beginning of a porno. But no, for better or for worse, a pinch to the wrist proved that Connor was actually awake and probably not hallucinating(that only happened that one time where he didn’t sleep for five days. Now he cuts himself off at 96 hours.) 

“Hey, Connor!” Officer Haley waves from behind the wall of police tape and on-lookers. “Where’ve you been?” 

“Around,” Connor waves vaguely and walks through the holographic police line without a thought. “How are the kids?”

“Little Jimmy’s finally potty trained,” she responds. “Fucking finally.” Connor is saved from having to find a suitable reply but a voice behind him. 

“No androids allowed.”

Connor turns and fumbles to answer. “Oh, um he’s with me.” 

The officer raises his eyebrow, looking skeptical. “Do I look like I care? If it’s yours then tell it to sit or something.” 

“First of all, he is not a dog,” Connor reminds him, growing angry. He’d never understood how humans can give gender to basically anything, but couldn’t even give androids the right of pronouns. Out of the corner of his eye Connor can see Hank’s LED spin yellow as he processes the change. “Secondly-“

“Kid, shut up already, will ya?” The officer cuts him off, giving his buddy an exasperated look. 

“Officer Brent, this kid single handedly took down the biggest red ice smugglers in the city. I would listen to him if I were you,” Haley calls out. The officer looks closer at Connor before finally recognizing him. 

“Oh shit,” the Officer stands down. “Sorry about that, it’s so hard to recognize people when it’s dark and all.” He quickly steps aside and allows Hank to pass. 

“It’s alright, Officer. My colleague.” Connor sends a glare at Officer Haley who just grins. “Has a habit of exaggerating. Let’s go Hank.” He waits till the androids at his side before moving towards the front door. 

“Lieutenant,” Hank says as they enter the house. “I just read through multiple articles on the red ice case Officer Haley mentioned and she was correct. You did solve the case single handedly. In fact, one journalist said the entire precinct was unbelieving of your theories at first.” 

“They always exaggerate in those things.” Connor waves it off, trying and failing to focus on the room. “I’m not the hero they make me out to be.” 

He’d heard the same things over and over again - from Fowler, from Conan, from the therapist Fowler and Conan forced him to see - but Connor never believed it. He wasn’t a hero in any way, and never would be. The weeks after the bust, it was all over every news outlet, but not a single one got the entire story. 

Connor crouched behind a crate. They’d been exactly where his intel had said they would be. He could hear them talking; talking about prices, shipments, everything he needed to prove them wrong. 

He’d planned just to record them and leave with enough evidence to put them behind bars for years. 

He wasn’t prepared when the shooting started. 

He wasn’t prepared for the screaming. 

He wasn’t prepared for her. 

"Lieutenant, I think I know what happened here," Hank's voice startles him out of his head. 

Connor blinks, trying to remember where he was and what he was doing before the flashback had hit. His fingers move unconsciously to dig into his bicep through the sleeve, right where he knows it’ll hurt enough to make him fully lucid. The pain helps, and her body melts always, replaced by the victim of his current case. If Hank notices, which he does, he doesn’t mention it. 

“Oh?” Connor says after finding his voice. “I’m all ears.” 

“The struggle began in the kitchen,” the android explains. “The owner was beating his android with that bat. The android than devianted and grabbed a knife, which it- I mean they used to stab the owner. The owner tried to flee but was stopped in the living room where the deviant went on to stab him 28 times.” Connor nods along as Hank explains, agreeing with the androids' logic. 

“Sounds solid to me, now we just have to figure out where it went…” Connor walks around a bit more, taking a closer look at the body before the small becomes to much and he goes to the back door for air. There he sees footprints but none indicating the deviant left through there. He’s about to go and share this with Hank when he turns right into the androids chest. “Ah shit I am so sorry.” Connor chuckles sheepishly and unpeels himself from Hanks chest, which, he notes, is several inches taller than his and feels as warm as he’d expect a human to feel. 

“Lieutenant you should watch where you’re going,” the android says, eyebrows furrowed at how flustered it made Connor. 

“Um yes you’re right.” He clears his throat. “I was about to tell you about the-“

“The footprints,” Hank finishes. “Yes they prove the deviant did not leave through here.”

“But where else would they go?” Connor thinks out loud, subconsciously tucking an unlit cigarette between his lips. 

“I have an idea, Lieutenant,” Hank says, grabbing the cigarette from between the man’s lips and flicking it into the trees. “Come with me.” This time Hank takes the man’s hand as to not lose time waiting for Connor to realize he hand to follow. 

“Um okay?” Connor lets himself be pulled along, avoiding the confused gazed of the others on the scene. “Where are we going?”

“Thirium evaporates after a certain amount of time, and becomes invisible to the human eye, but I can still detect it,” Hank explains, his eyes flitting between the floor and walls as he walks. 

“Oh, that’s pretty genius,” Connor answers before adding in a mumble. “Wish I could do that.”

“There.” Hank comes to a stop so quickly Connor runs into his back. “The thirium leads to this attic entrance.” The human follows his finger and true enough, there’s a small board in the ceiling. 

“Well look at that.” Connor pats Hank's shoulder. “Good work for your first job.” 

“Lieutenant, you know we have still yet to catch the culprit, correct?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Connor sighs. “You’re no fun.” He looks around for a moment and sees that no officers or ladders are nearby. “Here, lift me up and I’ll check it out.” He rubs his hands together in preparation. 

“Lieutenant, my protocols are to call for backup,” Hank interjects. 

Connor simply pats his hip holster where his gun resides. “Got all the backup I need.” Hank stares at him for a moment, and Connor can’t tell if he’s about to laugh or scold him. Thankfully he does neither, just kneels down and offers his hands for Connor to step in. 

Without more thought, Connor does just that and lets himself be lifted - without struggle, he notes - through the hole and crawls up into the attic. He pulls his gun as he stands, noticing that the room checks all the boxes for ‘haunted attic’, including a full body mannequin. He moves across the space as quietly as he can, wanting the element of surprise. Unfortunately this only splits his thoughts on top of his blooming headache and before Connor knows it his gun’s knocked away and an android is tackling him and oh shit they just fell out of the attic and ouch that’s going to bruise.


	3. “$3”&3&333€¥*]%+£•33&

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deviate attack. Connor fall. Hank protect. Fowler scold. 
> 
> Yeah that pretty much sums it up.

Within the 97 minutes that Hank has known Connor, he’s concretely concluded four things about him;

1) He has a smoking addiction  
2) He’s eerily nice  
3) He has no regard for his own safety 

And, of course;

4) He is most definitely emotionally unstable

Hank's programming tells him that he should be reporting three out of four of these things, but honestly, the Lieutenant’s treatment of him was a relief for his stress levels and general processing units. 

Until now, that is. Because Connor crashing from the attic with deviant’s hands at his throat is pretty bad for Hank’s stress levels, as one could imagine. 

“He’s going to kill me,” the deviant mumbles, tightening its grip. “I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die.” 

Hank lunges forward, working on plying the hands from the Lieutenants throat. He interfaces with the android for less than a second and gets a bunch of garbled nonsense from the deviants point of view. Somehow it was so scared it was confusing Connor with his owner to a hallucinating level. If it was a human, Hank would diagnose it with shock or post-traumatic stress, but it’s an android and all Hank can think is THREAT. 

It takes precisely 7.6 seconds to pull the deviant off of Connor, during which three of its fingers were broken, four others were dislocated, two angry hand prints had raised on the human’s pale neck, and three officers had noticed and rushed to the scene. Hank allowed them to take care of handcuffing the suspect while he focused on the Lieutenant. 

“Lieutenant, are you alright?” The man grunts and tries to sit up in response. When he grimaces Hank moves in and aids him in sitting up. “Lieutenant, you may have multiple cracked ribs, so you should really stay still.” Before he’s done talking Connor is moving to stand. 

“Just bruising,” Connor says, his voice raspy. The man stands fully and pushes Hank’s hand away in favor of the wall. “I’ll be fine. I could use some water though.” He coughs to drive the point home. 

“Lieutenant, I must insist we visit the hospital.”

“Well I must insist that we get to the station and interrogate the suspect,” he snaps. Hank backs away and allows him to walk to a squad car on his own. the android takes a moment to add a conclusion to his list; 

5) Connor is dangerously stubborn 

“And please just call me Connor.”

{%*%}

“Lieutenant Reika, why is it always you?” 

Connor ducks his head sheepishly to avoid Fowler’s gaze. “I wouldn’t say it’s always me…” 

“Seriously, Reika? Do I need to pull out your incident report again?” Fowler threatens and Connor promptly shakes his head. The last time his drawer - not a file, an entire drawer - was pulled out he’d been the butt of jokes for weeks. “The precinct has even started betting. I guess I’ll cut you some slack because this stunt of yours won me fifty bucks, but I’m still disappointed.”

“I’m sorry. I really am,” Connor says, absentmindedly reaching to scratch at his shoulder. 

“Then why does it keep happening!?” Fowler slaps the table. “You have to start giving a damn about yourself.” Connor goes quiet after that, and the room is silent long enough for Hank, who’d been watching the entire conversation from the corner of Fowler’s office, to wonder if he should step in. Fowler sighs before he can. “Now, tell me exactly what happened.”

“Well, we were-“ Connor begins. 

“No not you,” Fowler cuts him off. “The android. I can trust it to tell me everything.” 

“Trust him,” Connor corrects under his breath loud enough for only Hank to hear. 

“We arrived after the scene at approximately 8:26 pm. The Lieutenant and I investigated the scene and came to the conclusion that the victim’s android had deviated when beaten with a bat, and had retaliated with a kitchen knife. We later deducted that the deviant had not left the house through conventional means, and tracked residual thirium to an attic door. I was instructed to boost the Lieutenant into attic, where it attacked the Lieutenant and-“

“He.” Connor interjected louder this time, followed by a cough. “He attacked me.”

“I.” Hank’s LED spins as he tries to figure out why the Lieutenant would possibly care for the deviant that just tried to murder him. “I hardly see how that is pertinent to the report.”

“Reika, shut up about it and let the android speak,” Fowler growls. 

“The deviant attacked the Lieutenant,” Hank continues. “tackling him through the attic floor and proceeding to choke him. I was able to remove the android and it- he was taken into custody.”

“Connor, why the fuck aren’t you in a hospital right now?” Fowler turns his chair to face the man menacingly. 

“Fowler, I’m fine. I need to be here if we’re going to wrap up the case!” Connor sounds exasperated, as if Hank and Fowler were the annoying ones for caring so much. The only thing stopping Hank from rolling his eyes are stricter social protocols put in place around figures of authority. “I promise, I’ll get checked out after the interrogation.”

“Fine! Now get out of my office.” Connor nods and stands. Hank notices a tremor in the Lieutenant’s legs as he exits, and can’t help but notice how hard he was scratching his arm. 

“You can go to,” Fowler addresses the android, not looking up from his desk. Hank nods, too focused on Connors retreating figure to follow his dialogue prompts. The android keeps his distance but follows Connor until he pushes through a door into a back alley. Hank doesn’t need to see to know he was lighting yet another cigarette. 

The human spends 19 minutes outside, enough for two and third cigarettes by Hank’s estimations, before coming back inside. 

“Shit!” Connor jumps when he opens the door to find the android right in front of him. “You need a fucking bell.” His voice shakes a bit and his breath smells like smoke, but his footing and emotions are obviously more steady. 

“I apologize, Connor,” Hank smiles at the corners of his mouth. “Next time I can play this sound when I approach.” He searches through sounds and settles on a file called ‘Windows Start-Up Sound’. To him it sounds like a random sound file, but it makes Connor laugh so Hank smiles more. 

“I beg of you, please don’t. I’ll lose my shit every time,” Connor pleads as he wipes tears from his eyes. “Thank you, I needed it.” He adds once he’s calmed down enough. 

Hank nods. “I believe our suspect is scheduled to be questioned in Interrogation Room 6 in 37 seconds.” 

“Oh shit we better go.” Connor fast walks down the hall. “The last time I left Gavin alone with someone they ran out crying before I could ask a single question.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Side note; I was planning on making Fowler Hank's equivalent of Amanda, but I forgot this plan(as one does) and realized I didn't really want to write Hank's mindscape, mostly because they wouldn't really move the story forward and would be almost exact copies of the Amanda scenes in the games. So just assume that Hank does have a mindscape with an OC handler.


	4. @&”44&@=^>]¥}€444$%[*

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gavin is a dick, Connor is too tired for this, and apparently Hank is a daddy now?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter! Enjoy!

Thankfully, by the time they arrive Gavin is just leaning against the wall on the cop side of the two-way glass and their perp wasn’t any more damaged than when he was brought in. 

“Oh look who it is,” Gavin says, pushing away from the wall as the pair enters. “The ugly duck and his new plastic daddy. I heard you made a scene, again.” 

“Has the perp said anything yet?” Connor says, ignoring the man in favor of flipping through the case folder. “And has anyone gotten him any thirium? Hank?” 

Hank scans the android without the Lieutenant having to say any more. “The deviant’s thirium levels are at 72%.”

“Reed, you do realize the suspect has to be able to stay online for us to get anything out of him,” Connor snaps. 

“I don’t get paid enough to wait on fucking robots,” Gavin says, stepping forward with his hands clenched, itching for a fight. “And even if I did, I still wouldn’t give a fuck.”

“Lieutenant, I can get some thirium while you begin to question the subject,” Hank suggests before things can get worse. 

“Good idea.” Connor takes the file with him and leaves the room quickly, but not before Gavin can shout behind him;

“Yeah you better listen to your daddy you little fucker!”

Hank lingers in the room, debating whether it was worth it to make a snarky comment, and eventually decides it would only further escalate the situation and leaves to retrieve the thirium. During the walk to the small repair kit tucked away in a janitor's closet, the android mills over Gavin’s use of the word ‘daddy’. 

He obviously used it because he wanted to get under Connor’s skin, so he must not be using it in a traditional way. A quick scan of Urban Dictionary confirms this, but that doesn’t explain why Gavin would use it against Connor specifically. What does he know about the Lieutenant that would make Gavin confident in its harmfulness? 

Hank stills doesn’t have an answer by the time he arrives back at Interrogation Room #6, so he marks that mission as incomplete and makes a note to investigate further. 

Connor is talking with the deviant when he arrives, so Hank waits outside until he leaves, which is much quicker than expected. Connor doesn’t jump this time when he sees Hank, probably too exhausted to, and just leans his forehead against the wall next to his partner. 

“I can’t get the deviant to do anything other than apologize for attacking me,” Connor groans. “And when I tell him it’s fine he just goes quiet.” He pushes off the wall and goes back into the cop side with Hank following. 

“Wow Reika you’re even more useless than usual,” Gavin says, grinning. “Do I really have to go in there and show you how it’s done?”

Connor just sighs and plops down into a chair, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Honestly, I’d rather eat shit than have you question my suspect.” 

“What was that you little-“ 

“I can question the deviant.” Hank offers. Connor smiles at the annoyed expression on Gavin’s face. The android is surprised by the positive feedback that comes with it, similarly to what it feels like to complete a mission. 

“You? What the fuck would a hunk of plastic know about-“ 

“I am equipped with protocols for all situations a detective might find themselves in,” Hank interrupts, again, partially to get that feedback again and partially because Gavin is delaying this much more than needed. 

“He’s all yours,” Connor says, slightly proud, and hands him the case file with a smile.

“Androids investigating androids, Huh?” Gavin grunts. “Fucking mad.” 

Hank nods, taking the file while ignoring Gavin, and heads into the other room. He sets the bottle of thirium in the table where the deviant can reach and stands for a moment, flipping through the file as if he didn’t already have it memorized to give the android time to drink it, before sitting down across from him. It takes Hank 23 milliseconds to go through all possible dialogue routes, and chooses on while keeping in mind that a confession most likely appears at 80% stress levels. 

“I hope that thirium was enough to replenish your systems. I don’t know if you remember me, but I was on scene during your arrest,” Hank begins calmly. “In fact, you attacked my partner.”

The deviant jerks his gaze up from the table, his eyes flickering across the others face erratically. “I’m so sor-“ 

“Why did you attack the Lieutenant?” Hank cuts him off, his voice suddenly more serious. 

“I - i thought it was him.” The deviant seems unsure of his words, stress levels raising a few points. 

“I assume you're referring to your owner,” Hank offers before his voice goes even lower. “The one you murdered.”

The perp jumps at the word, shaking his head vigorously as his stress jumps to 68%.“I was defending myself I didn’t mean to-“ 

“You didn’t mean to? You stabbed him 28 times.” Hank is yelling now, standing slightly in the suit tower over him. “28 times. You made sure he wouldn’t live. You wanted him dead.”

“He was hitting me with a bat!” The deviant yells back, stress levels soaring past 80%. “The only reason I’m alive is because I stabbed him. I deserve to live to!”

“So you admit to murdering your owner.”

“I …” the deviant’s face falls, voice heavy. “They’re going to deactivate, aren’t they?”

A cop, Officer Chris Humphrey, enters the room before Hank can answer, followed by Gavin and Connor. 

“Good job, Hank,” Connor says, smiling and coming next to android to slap his shoulder. 

“Good job, Daddy,” Gavin mimics, rolling his eyes. “Get this thing out of here Chris. I don’t want to see the end of this porno.” 

“Cool it, Reed,” Chris answers, but goes to grab the deviants arm. But Hank’s lack of answer had only made the deviant more stressed, so when the Officer reaches to grab him he flinched away. “Come on.” The deviant shifts entirely this time, and when the officer finally gets a grip on him he rips his arm away. 

“Chris, what’s the deal?” Gavin asks. 

“It won’t listen to me,” Chris snaps back, growing impatient, and grabs the androids shoulder. 

“Don’t touch me!” He yells in response. Hank steps forward, concerned as the deviant’s stress levels surpass 90%. 

“Officer, the deviant’s stress levels are too high. He will self-destruct if you don’t leave him alone.” Hank’s warning is ignored. 

Connor is stressed just watching the situation unfold, but Hank’s warning coupled with Gavin stepping forward to help Chris is enough to push him to move. “Stop,” he says before repeating himself louder. “I said stop it!” Chris has enough sense to back away but Gavin continues struggling with the deviant. Connor snaps in anger and exhaustion and full force shoves Reed away from the table and into the wall. “Can you not hear through your thick skull, or are you just stupid?”

“Did you just fucking push me?” Reed says, immediately shoving Connor back. He stumbles for a bit but Hank steadies him. The android steps forward with the goal of disabling the threat, but stops at the sound of a gun being drawn. “Nothing to say now, huh Reika?” Reed snorts, gun rocking a bit but steadily pointed at Connor’s face. 

Connor is shaking, breaths short and small, and Hank immediately realizes he’s on route to a panic attack. “Put the gun down,” the android commands. He NEEDS to shut this situation down before Connor panicked, Gavin lost control, higher ups saw and reported it(because then Hank would be reassigned and for some reason that felt wrong), or any other horrible scenario. 

“Oh shut up you plastic pric-“ 

Hank loses patience over the course of Gavin’s sentence and moves without warning, grabbing the gun from the holster at Connor’s hip and aiming it precisely between the human’s eyes. “Put the gun down.” Hank's close enough to Connor to feel his heart pounding. 

Gavin holds for a moment before obeying. “Fuck,” he swears as he storms towards the door, slamming his shoulder into Hank’s as he goes. “You’ll fucking regret this, Reika.” The door slams, Connor jumps, and the room goes quiet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone questioning why Hank isn't getting in trouble for baring arms, and why Gavin isn't getting in trouble for threatening another detective with a gun; if Gavin complains about Hank, Fowler will find out what lead up to Hank stealing a gun, and if Connor reports Gavin, Hank will be found out. So neither parties want to speak up because they don't want to get in trouble. Thanks for listening to my ted talk, have a good day.


	5. $5)??%}55¥€]+5€*^&”$$55

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor copes(badly), Hank jokes, Fowler is done, and Gavin is a jerk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note; there is self harm in this chapter. It's not very graphic but just to warn anyone who might be triggered, the paragraph before the first {%*%} mentions self harm. Another note; the self harm depicted in this story is very much based on my experience. This means that not everyone experiences the same thing, does it for the same reasons, or has the same thought process.

Hank insists on a hospital visit after they guide the deviant to a holding cell, citing the human’s continued pain, stress levels, abnormal heart rate, and promise to Fowler. Connor refuses, as expected, but promises to ice his ribs and relax when he gets home. 

What actually happens is Connor staring unseeingly at his bedroom wall from his seat on the ground; going through every mistake he’d made that day; wondering what Reed might do tomorrow; worrying about Fowler realizing he was useless and firing him; fearing how close he was to breaking down at the station today. This was Connor’s night time routine, and usually lasted till 3 am unless he passed out from exhaustion. Like normal his thoughts just spiral, one scenario spinning into two and then five and on and on until it’s too much. 

Connor reaches for the objects next to him, a lighter and cigarette box. The window is already open, so he simply places one between his lips and lights it, taking a drag. He does this a few times before letting it dangle from his lips and using his now free hand to roll up his left sleeve. Without much thought he takes up the cigarette again and presses the burning tip to his skin. He pulls it away when it hurts so much he can’t think anymore, leaving behind an angry red burn matching the other circles littering his shoulder in various stages of healing. They stuck out against his pale skin, unlike the lines of long healed white scars that had almost faded into his left arm. 

He inhales another breath of smoke, letting the mixture of pain and tobacco roll over him. He wasn’t at peace - never was - but at least he felt numb, and numb felt better to him sometimes. 

{%*%}

Connor arrives at the station early the next morning. He’d gotten maybe four hours of sleep before his alarm went off and he forced his body to move. He’d long ago realized that feeling well rested wasn’t worth the time and that exhaustion was a good way to dull his brain. 

He immediately gets to work at his desk, logging into his terminal and flipping through his folder of intriguing cold cases. Connor had taken to looking them over when bored or restless, and while he rarely closed them due to lack of new evidence, they were good practice, and once in a while he would notice something overlooked before. 

The human gets so into his readings that he doesn’t notice the pretense behind him until they lay a hand on his shoulder. Connor jumps, turning with his hands ready to deflect, only to find Hank peering down at him curiously, like a fish in a bowl. “Lieutenant, you are early,” the android says as if he could be surprised. 

“Good use of those processing powers, Hank.” Connor feels slightly better with the android around. “How was your night?” He asks as he turns back to his terminal. 

“I am an android. I plugged into a charging port at the station and went into stasis.” Hank said, his face deadpan.

“Sounds like you really partied,” Connor quips back to cover his mistake. Sometimes he forgets his partner didn’t experience the same things as him. He just seemed so… human sometimes. Especially with his grey hair and slight facial hair and his voice and skin and wow Connor needs to stop that train of thought. 

“I wouldn’t say partied,” Hank offers. “Perhaps more like… a rave?” Connor can tell the android is just trying to play along so Connor laughs and nods. 

“Reika! Get in here.” Fowler yells from his office. 

“Exactly, Hank.” Connor claps him on the shoulder as he stands. “Exactly.” He makes his way over to Fowler’s office doors but stops before entering. He turns, sees Hank see hovering by his desk, and waves him over. “Are you coming or what, partner?” 

The HK800 unit nods, smiling slightly as he follows Connor. He wants a way to show the other he appreciates it, but doesn’t know what would be appropriate seeing as ‘show partner your gratitude’ isn’t included in his protocols. He decides to do the safe thing and mirrors Connor’s early act, patting the human on the shoulder before holding the door for him. 

Connor’s smile is 12.7% wider than usual, a pop-up alerts Hank, and with it comes the rush of another accomplished mission. He’s yet to determine what this means, so he sets it aside to be looked at later. 

“Connor, I heard the interrogation went well,” Fowler says, looking up as the pair enter. 

“Yes it did.” Connor replies. “Hank was able to get the deviant to confess fairly quickly. Though there were some follow up questions so I planned on questioning him again.”

“Too late. It knocked its brains out in a cell last night. Nearly took the glass with it. Big mess.” Fowler rubs his eyes tiredly. “You’ve got a new case anyway.” 

Connor, whose face had originally fallen at the idea of the deviant commuting suicide, peeks up slightly.

“An AX400 murdered a man last night . It was seen in the Ravedale district,” Fowler pushes an address towards him. “You’ll be working on it with your new partner.”

Connor glances back at Hank, anxious. “What do you mean? I don't need a new partner. I have Hank.” 

“Cool your jets.” Fowler rolls his eyes. “Sometimes I wonder how someone so thick can be such a good detective. Hank is your new partner.” 

“Oh!” Connor smiles sheepishly. “I assumed we already were partners.” 

“Well now you are, officially. Now go solve this case.” 

Connor stands at the dismissal. “Aye aye, Captain!” He calls as he leaves, Hank once again holding the door. “Thanks Hank.” 

The android nods, about to respond with a pre-programmed ‘you’re welcome’ before another option pops up. This one wasn’t programmed, but instead something he’d found off the web. It was less stiff, more human, and while his programming doesn’t support it, Hank quickly sees it as the better option. Why, he wasn’t sure, but it felt like it fit better, so he choose it. 

“No problem,” the android responds, smiling a little before letting the door go and following his partner. 

“I’m going to go grab my coat. Get us some coffee?” Connor asks, already walking away. 

“I don’t drink coffee, Connor,” Hank responds but the man is already gone. The android shrugs it off and heads to the break room, where the coffee machine was. He immediately recognizes two people in the room, Gavin Reed and an officer, but after the situation last night he chooses not to greet them. When he reaches the machine he realizes he doesn’t know how the Lieutenant prefers his coffee, but if the android was to guess from the coffee cup he may or may not have analyzed on Connor’s desk, it was black with lots of sugar, so he stuffs a hand full of sugar packets into his pocket while waiting for the machine to work. 

“Oh fuck, look at that,” Gavin calls out. After snickering with the officer next to him he pushes off the table and walks over to the android. “Our plastic friend is back in town. Congratulations on last night, very impressive.” The man claps, obviously mocking Hank. 

Hank turns, wanting to get this mission disturbance out of the way quickly. “Hello, I'm Hank.” 

Gavin looks back at the officer and snorts. “Do I look like I care?” He asks. “Now, what type of android are you? Cause I sure as hell have never seen a bot with grey hair.” 

Hank looks down at his jacket, making sure his label is still there, before answering. “My model is HK800, as you can see here.” He underlines the number on his chest with his hand for emphasis. 

Gavin snarls at this. “I can read dip-shit.” He pauses as if searching for something to retort. “Now bring me my coffee.” He gestures at the cup that was just finished being filled, Connor’s cup. 

“I can't do that.” Hank answers simply. “That is for the Lieutenant.” 

This only aggravates Gavin further, and Hank is caught off guard when the man swings at him, hitting him hard in the abdomen. HK800 was built to take punches, so he doesn’t fall to the ground but he does stumble backwards to Gavin’s satisfaction. “You’re lucky the Captain likes Reika so much, because if that weren’t for that I would’ve blown your fucking android brains out last night and beat your little partner to a p-“

“Reed, what are you doing with my partner,” Connor says, a mix of anger and exhaustion weighing his voice down. 

“Just putting him in his place,” Reed says, already walking away. “Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten about you, dipshit.” Hank begins to lunge at the man at this threat, but Connor steps in front of him before he can. 

“It’s not worth it, Hank,” Connor sighs, taking the coffee from the machine. “Sorry you have to deal with him. He’s a dick.” He takes a sip of the coffee, his face going sour when he realizes there’s no sugar yet. “It’s better to just let him throw his tantrum and prey he gets reassigned sometime soon.” He looks around the counter for the sugar packets but finds their usual spot empty. “Damn it.” He swears under his breath. 

“Here, Lieutenant,” Hank says, pulling out the handfuls of sugar packets in his pocket and offering them to the man. 

“Oh thank god,” Connor almost moans at the sight and quickly begins pouring them in until the coffee can’t dissolve any more. He takes a sip and actually moans this time. “So good.” 

Hank smiles watching this. “You know that coffee can cause excess anxiety, right?” 

Connor continues gulping it down despite the heat. “You know what, I don’t care.” He says before throwing the empty cup in the trash and leaving for the car. Hank nods, having expected the answer, and follows him. “Now, off to catch some deviants!”


	6. “@6666$%*]€¥66£•66€

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hank chase. Connor reckless. Personal questions asked. Caffeine consumed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay another chapter. Also, if there are any Markus x Connor fans out there I just published a one-shot called "Markus' Undead Soulmate" starring the pair as soulmates!

The drive there is fairly short, and well used. Hank is introduced to Heavy Metal music, which he doesn’t mind despite the way it makes his audio receptors vibrate excessively. Meanwhile, Connor goes between tapping his hand against the steering wheel along with the beat and smoking out the window. Hank is about to spout something about the effects of cigarettes on health when they pull up. Officer Haley is there to greet them again, and quickly explains the situation; an android who had attacked a man last night had been seen in the district. Hank analyzes the situation quickly and relays his conclusion that the android took the first bus to last stop. He gets another clap on the back from the Lieutenant from this before they follow his lead. 

The pair eventually finds themselves at a house. It’s falling apart, and hasn’t been owned or up kept in years, Hank concludes from the peeling paint and growing weeds. “There's thirium on the fence,” the android notes. “An android has been here recently.” 

“No need to wait then,” Connor nods up towards the top of the chain link fence that separated the pair from the house. “Boast me up and I’ll check it out.” 

“Seeing as the last time I did that you were tackled and obtained numerous injuries-”

“Like… one injury!” Connor protests. 

“I don’t think that is the best way to go,” Hank finishes.

“Aren’t you supposed to, I don’t know, listen to me?” Connor asks, more jokingly than serious. 

“Perhaps if your ideas were more sound I would,” Hank replies, ignoring the pop-up that warned him on mouthing off. The android knew Connor was capable of handling a joke, even if his program didn’t. 

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” Connor huffs, crossing his arms like a seven year old, but smiles slightly. Hank cared for him in a way that wasn’t smothering or aggressive. It was refreshing. “Go ahead and show me up.”

“Will do, Lieutenant,” Hank answers simply, another smile forcing its way onto his face as he climbs on top of a nearby dumpster and then jumps over the fence.

“It’s Connor!” 

Hank waves in acknowledgement as he walks along the side of the house, peeking through the window and spotting an android inside. He finds the door, and after determining that the situation was safe enough, enters. 

Once inside, HK800 notices the damaged state of the other, putting him more at ease. Meanwhile, the android grows more and more skittish the closer Hank gets to it. “Are there any other androids here?”

“No, just Ralph.” The android, Ralph, shakes his head feverishly. “Just Ralph. Ralph is alone.” 

There are at least nine reasons Hank shouldn’t believe him, so instead of believing him the HK800 unit begins to search the house. The inside isn’t much better than the outside, with the floors barren, walls covered in scribbles of ‘RA9’, and boxes placed randomly. Hank is about to go up the stairs when he addresses Ralph again. “Is there anyone upstairs?” 

“No,” Ralph answers quickly. This time his stress level goes down and Hank turns around, accepting it as the truth. The android pauses in the center of the room, wondering where else someone could hide, when he sees a shift of movement out of the corner of his eye. He approaches the spot, a space under the stairs covered by boxes, and his eyes widen when he recognizes the AX400. Hank’s about to reach out when he’s suddenly grabbed from behind.

“Run, Kara!” Ralph yells. “Go now!” The AX400 wastes no time in grabbing her companion’s - a little girl - hand and bolting. Hank rips away from Ralph and is about to go after her when Connor suddenly walks through the door.

“Hank, what's-“ Hank doesn’t have time to process how annoying it was that Connor must have jumped the fence against Hank's wishes, nevertheless listen to the end of his sentence.

“She’s here!” is all Hank says before bolting off after her. 

“Shit!” Connor swears and soon enough Hank hears footsteps pounding behind him. The human catches up fairly quickly, and Hank takes a moment to appreciate how quick on his feet he was. This moment is promptly ruined when the human stumbles over a rock, catching himself on a lamppost. If Hank could laugh he woul- never mind he’s definitely chuckling under his breath. In the corner of his vision a pop up alerts him to an increase in instability. The android ignores it and pushes on. 

Soon enough Hank catches up the fugitive, only a bit too late to stop her from climbing the fence. A cop aims a gun at the deviant, but Hank quickly intervenes, citing it was crucial to the investigation but in reality it just felt cruel to shoot her now, with a little girl at her feet. He meets the AX400’s eyes through the grate, the raw emotion in them picking at him, before she whips around, leading the little girl with her across the barrier and onto the highway.

A string of swears announces the Lieutenants arrival. The chain link fence clattering is the only warning Hank receives before he turns to find Connor trying to climb the fence. “Connor! What the fuck are you doing?” Hank doesn’t have the time to care that he just breached numerous social protocols by swearing and yelling at a human, too focused on dragging the idiot off the fence. “Do you want to die?!” Riding a high of unconstrained speech, Hank yells the question he’s been rolling over in his mind ever since he met the Lieutenant. 

The man only sputters a bit at first, confused by both the sudden yelling and also why he cared, but his gaze hardens after a moment's thought. “Fuck off,” he grumbles, turning away from the fence and walking towards the car. Hank takes this as a yes. The android calms down, and his speech returns to the normal prompts. 

“Where are you going, Lieutenant?” 

Connor grumbles at the term but doesn’t correct him, too busy lighting a cigarette between his lips. “Need fuel,” he says after exhaling. He stops and turns back when he reaches the car. “Coming?” 

{%*%}

The pair pull up at Chicken Feed a bit later. Heavy metal was playing, of course, but Connor turned it off when they arrived, not wanting to bother anyone. 

“Lieutenant, this place is not up to health code regulations,” Hank warns after Connor orders his ‘usual’, whatever that might be. 

Connor waves it off. “Don’t worry. I come here so often I’ve grown immune.”

“Hey!” The food truck owner calls from inside the truck. “You love my coffee.” The man sets down a cup of coffee and a can of energy drink down in front of them. 

“I admit it. You're the best.” Connor smiles as he pays for the drinks. Hank notes that it’s a genuine smile, not the forced one that pulled weakly at his cheeks. Why the android noticed, he could not say. “Have a good one.”

“You too.” The man waved Connor off, but when Hank lingered he sent a snarl the androids way. It seemed he liked Connor enough to live with the android while the other was around, but dropped the act when the beam of sunshine was gone. Hank gets the hint and follows Connor to a stand up table nearby. 

There he is forced to watch the horror that is Connor pouring the entire energy drink and coffee into his personal travel cup, together. “Lieutenant-“

“Shush.”

“Lieutenant I really must advise you don’t drink th-“

“Shhhhhush!” 

Hank sighs but stays silent, instead calculating the amount of caffeine in the single drink as he watches Connor gulp down half of the concoction.

“Thank you whoever invented caffeine,” he says as he sets the drink down. “Now you may speak.” He waves to Hank. 

“Lieutenant, may I ask a personal question?” Connor shifts a bit, having expected something about caffeine killing him or whatever, but nods. “Why are you so reckless? I know you are smart enough to know that running onto a highway is life threatening, but you wanted to do it anyway.” 

“It’s fun.” Is all Connor says. Hank knows he’s lying. “Who knows, maybe I’m an adrenaline junkie?” 

“Lieutenant-“ 

“Connor,” the man corrects, silently asking not to talk about it. 

“Why do you insist I call you by your first name?” Hank asks, trying to put the Lieutenant at ease by changing the subject. “My social protocols call for me to recognize my superiors by their titles.” 

Connor snorts at the word ‘superior’, red drink spraying from his nose. “Me? Superior to you?” He continues laughing as he uses a napkin to wipe his face. “I’m a scrawny, emotionally unstable, fleshy human. You’re a highly intelligent, basically immortal, fucking android. If anyone’s superior, it’s you.”

Hank decides not to open that conversation. “You didn’t answer my question,” he notes. 

“Fine.” Connor sighs. “My dad was a Lieutenant, and went by it basically everywhere. His partner, his friends, his waiter. It’s part of why I became a detective.” He plays with the edge of the napkin. “But I’m not my dad, so I don't want to be compared to him every time someone wants to talk. The title of ‘Lieutenant Reika’ should and will rest with my dad. So I’m just Connor, or Reika.” He looks up and Hank can see the resolution in his eyes. 

Hank nods. “Okay, Connor.” A new submission called ‘Avoid using Lieutenant’ appears across his vision under ‘Protect Connor’. He doesn’t remember when the bigger mission appeared, but it feels right even as his software instability goes up. 

“Can I ask you another personal question, Connor.” Hank stresses the name and Connor smiles slightly, pleased. 

“Yes?” Connor asks, turning towards Hank. 

“Why do you treat androids so humanly? This doesn’t seem to be normal behavior for humans.” Connor frowns again at this one and Hank almost retracts the question. 

“I knew another android once. I didn’t know her for long, and she probably didn’t even know my name, but she acted more human than so many people I know. She felt so much. And because of that - because of me - she died.” Hank frowns, this being the first time to hear about this incident. Nothing like it is in Connor’s file. “In the accident report she was written off as an ‘it’, ‘property damage’.” Connor grips the cup tightly. “She deserved better. Androids in general deserve better.” Connor clears his throat when he realizes he went full rant on Hank. “Yeah that’s… that's it.” He laughs awkwardly and rubs the back of his neck. "Sorry I'm so weird." 

“You are odd,” Hank says bluntly. “But it’s refreshing."

“Thanks,” Connor smiles, blushing slightly. “I guess.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked it! I'm trying to ease HK800 into the swears so it correlates with his Software Instability, that's why he swears more when in danger or around Connor. Meanwhile, Connor's mental health is slowly degrading, and will be the star of the next couple chapters.


	7. $77%[£€7}77$*=[•?\777?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They chase. Connor fall. Hank help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeet another chapter! School started, btw, and this story is the only thing keeping me sane so... hopefully I keep writing it.

It isn’t long before Hank and Connor arrive. 43 minutes to be exact; enough time for Connor to finish his horror show of a drink, Hank to receive a transmission alerting him to another deviant case, and for both of them to drive there. The two hadn’t talked much due to Connor’s mouth being preoccupied with, yes, more cigarettes and humming along with the music, but the silence was broken outside of the apartment, when Connor knocked on the door.

“Detroit Police!” Connor calls, knocking again. “Open up!” When no one answers Connor sighs and steps away from the door. Hank is almost too slow to notice the Lieutenant was winding up to bust it down, but manages to stop him mid step. 

“Connor, what the fuck are you doing?!” Is what Hank would have said if it wasn’t for the red wall blocking him from performing the action. Here’s what comes out instead; “Connor, may I ask what you were planning on doing?”

“Kick in the door?” The human answers more as a question, confused. Hank rubs at his temple with his hand, wondering if there were any active neurons in his partner's brain. 

“Do you not see the problem with the ‘fleshy human’ slamming himself into a door, when an android built specifically for that purpose is right next to you?” Hank answers, exasperated. 

“Excuse me for doing my job!” Connor defends half-heartedly, knowing Hank was probably right. 

“Your excuse.” Hank says, smiling slightly when Connor blubbers a bit in disbelief. “Now get behind me.”

“Get behind me I’m big and buff,” Connor mocks but listens anyway, standing behind his partner with a gun at the ready. Hank looks back at the human, waiting for his nod, before promptly slamming his shoulder into the door and letting it crash open into the wall. “Damn,” Connor whispers.

Hank ignores him and moves into the apartment, peeking his head through a door to the right and moving on once he deems it clear. He makes his way to the end of the hall, Connor close enough behind for the android to feel his breath. He notes how nice the warmth feels on his synthetic skin without thinking. In the corner of his vision a pop up signals a rise in software instability. Odd; the feeling was nice, so why would it create what he’s been told is a negative response? Hank pushes it away for further inspection and pushes the door open. 

A clump of pigeons flying in his face has Hank jumping back into Connor. He freezes, something like fear prickling in his throat.

“Whoa there,” Connor says, his free hand on Hank’s back. “You okay?” 

Hank nods, adjusting his tie and steps forward. He scans the room again, realizing that there is no immediate danger in the pigeons occupying the room. He still wrinkles his nose at the sight, all the rustling and filth putting him on edge. Hank decides he doesn’t like pigeons. 

“Scared of pigeons, huh. Couldn’t have guessed that.” Connor looks slightly amused.

“Androids don’t feel fear,” Hank snaps back. He feels irrational, the opposite of what he was meant to be, and it puts him on edge. “I just find them disruptive to the mission.”

“Mhm,” Connor says, eyebrow raised. Hank can tell he doesn’t buy it, but the Lieutenant lets the subject drop, turning his attention to the writing on the walls. Hank follows suit and surveys the evidence, quickly finding proof that whoever had been living there was a deviant. A notebook intrigues him the most, filled with code overlaid by hexagonal mazes. The android is comparing it to the one on the bathroom wall when he notices a dropped marker next to tipped stool. Whoever had been writing RA9 on the wall had stopped in a hurry. 

Hank pieces together the signs of disturbance - the tipped stool, fallen bird cage, a feces covered hand print - and reconstructs what happened. The trail ends above a chair, which Hank infers the deviant used to climb through a hole in the ceiling. A hole that Connor is now standing under, peering into. 

“Hank this hole looks suspicio-” Connor begins, waving Hank over. A noise from above the ceiling barely registers in Hank’s auditory biocomponents. 

“Connor get the fuck away from there!” Hank lets a swear word slip in the heat of the moment as he moves forward to grab his partner. He grips the man by the shoulders, and is about to drag Connor out of the way when he flinches in pain. Hank pauses, confused. He hadn’t gripped that hard. He isn’t given time to ask before something crashes into them from above, pushing them both to the floor. 

The attacker, who Hank identifies as the WB200 deviant, recovers quickly and runs from the room. Hank jumps up to give chase but spares a moment to look at the lieutenant. Connor is already standing with a grimace, having been slammed onto his still bruised ribs. 

“Go! I’m fine,” Connor waves after the deviant. 

Hank deliberates for a moment before nodding. “Stay.” Hank runs out of the room after the deviant knowing the Lieutenant won’t listen. 

The deviant has a head start, but Hank is built for chases like this. He may not be as fast as other models, but he was built with stamina in mind, so when the WB200 starts to slow because of stress on it’s biocomponents, Hank catches up. They jump across buildings, pushing through green houses and running on train cars getting gasps and slurs from pedestrians as they do. Hank is so close when the deviant disappears into a corn field a part of Detroit’s in-city agricultural system. 

Connor’s voice makes Hank push even harder, if possible. He emerges from the field to a scene that makes his stress levels spike. The deviant was grappling with his partner, but Connor was obviously off balance and all it takes is a push and he’s hanging from the edge of the building. 

The WB200 runs off to the left. Hank’s systems demand he follow them, but he runs to Connor without hesitation, his Protect Connor initiative taking priority. He grabs Connor’s by the forearm this time to avoid a repeat of earlier and pulls the man onto the rooftop. The Lieutenant doesn’t move, his breaths deep and sharp. 

“Connor are you alright?” Hank asks after a moment. 

“He got away.” Connor stares at his hands, clenching them into fists before punching the ground. “Fuck.” 

“We’ll catch him later.” Hank tries to reassure him. “We know what he looks like.” Connor just punches the ground around, heat prickling at the inside of his eyes. “Stop Lieutenant. You’re going to hurt yourself.” Connor finally looks up, but when Hank meets his eyes he finds anger he’d never seen in his partner before. 

“Shut up, would you?” He stands, hands clenched at his sides. “Why did you save me, huh? You could have caught him.”

“I saw you were in danger and wanted to-”

“Bullshit!” Connor yells in his face. “What you should want is to solve this case, which you keep stopping me from doing.” Connor jabs his finger into Hank’s chest hard enough for the android to step back. “This is my fucking job and I actually want to do it. Now stop getting in my fucking way before I fucking make you.” 

Hank takes it all quietly, and doesn’t say anything as Connor walks away. What he really wants to do is grab the Lieutenant by the shoulders and shake him; to force him to care a bit less about his job and more about his life. Hank doesn’t though, just watches Connor slam the roof door open, a lit cigarette already in his mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter features Connor, and his horrible coping mechanisms in full effect. Early warning for people who are triggered by descriptions of self harm.


	8. %88^*¥{888$//$88[#

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor breaks down. Hank finds him. Denial and hugs ensue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING; somewhat graphic self harm between "Connor fumbles through the house" and the first {%*%}. 
> 
> Also, just to reiterate, Connor's personal self harm experience does not apply to everyone.

Connor almost crashes on the way home, too busy wiping tears with one hand and holding a cigarette in the other to steer well. He’d broken down the second he got in the car. He was disappointed in himself for failing again; angry at himself for not running faster; guilty for directing his resentment at Hank when it was meant for himself. 

“Shit,” he cries, slamming his palm into the rim of his steering wheel. “Why can’t I do anything right?” He manages to drive the rest of the way home without totaling his car, parking haphazardly outside his house. He sits in his car for a while, just inhaling and exhaling, inhaling and exhaling, until a dog barks nearby and he realizes he should probably go inside. Connor’s new found awareness weighs on him, and like a scab he can’t pick, his arms burn. The feeling had become normal to him, so he recognized what he had to do to satisfy it. It was a call for pain, a call for release. 

The second the idea slams into him, Connor’s brain latches onto it. He has to hurt himself; has to or else the feeling will never leave; has to or else his thoughts will never calm. 

Connor fumbles through his house like a drunk man, nudging Sumo, dog, and Turtle, cat, away when they try to greet him, and makes his way to his room. He shuts the door before they can follow and collapses against his bed. His fingers shake as he lights a cigarette, not even bothering to take a drag before shoving the tip to the skin of his left shoulder. The itch quiets for a moment while the pain burns strong, but then the burn fades and the need remains. So Connor does it again, and again until his shoulder is one big ball of pain. 

His mind continues yelling though, going over everything he’d said to Hank, every mistake he’d made the last few days, all the reasons that pointed to the world being better off without him. Connor stands when his brain supplies him with what he needs. 

Usually the pain is enough; it’s distracting, forces him to focus, and quiets his mind. But that hadn’t always been his goal. Connor looks at his forearms. They’re littered with thin, white scars, many even fading. He hadn’t added to them in years, not since Conan had noticed. His brother had begged him to stop, worried for Connor’s life. 

Connor had stopped. Outwardly he said it was to stop his brother’s worries, but secretly he had found another, different mode. Conan had been so happy, praising him for improving on his mental health. 

That’s over, Connor says to himself, almost laughing, as he walks to his drawers. Usually the pain is what he needed; but right now Connor’s mind thirsted for blood.

Without more thought, Connor grabs his old set of blades and plops down right there next to his drawer and gives in to the cry of his mind. 

{&*&}

Hank is worried. Or at least the android equivalent. There was a new case, and he had notified his partner’s mobile device as soon as he knew, thinking Connor would jump at the promise of more work. When he didn’t answer within an hour, Hank gave in and decided to go straight to the source. So now here he is, taking in the Lieutenant’s haphazard parking job and the lack of life coming from the house. Only one light was on, but that was at the back of the house so Hank’s programming forces him to do the socially acceptable thing and ring the doorbell first. When Connor doesn’t answer, Hank grumbles under his breath(a new habit that definitely wasn’t due to his levels of software instability) and rings again, this time holding it for nearly five seconds just in case Connor was being an ass and ignoring him. 

No answer. Hank doesn’t grumble this time. 

The android decides it's time to throw proper etiquette to the wind and makes his way around the side of the house, stopping every so often to look in through windows but finding nothing but unlight and empty rooms on the other side. He finally makes his way to the only signs of life and looks through a singular window into what seems to be a bedroom. He scans the room, searching for any Connor-sized-life forms and almost gives up until he spots a leg peeking out from behind a shelf of drawers. The rest of the form is hidden because of the angle, but Hank recognizes the shoes immediately; they belonged to Connor. Hank’s stress levels climb incredibly fast and before his system can tell him it’s wrong he slams his shoulder in the window, successfully shattering it, and climbs in. Or tried to. In his rush he didn’t take his shoulder width into consideration, which is substantially wider than the tiny window. 

The noise is loud though, and the foot twitches before shifting. “Hello?” Connor’s voice rings out. Hank watches as the leg is pulled back and used to stand, and than walk, revealing the human. “Hank?” Connor rubs a hand into his eye, obviously having just awoken. His arm is on full display in the motion, and Hank’s thirium Pump is loud in his ears when he sees it. “What’s-“ 

“You’re bleeding,” Hank says, his eyes still on Connor’s arm, which was covered in thin lines and dried blood. “Why are you bleeding?” Connor freezes, glancing to see what he was talking about before going pale and dropping the limb quickly. He crosses his arms across his chest, careful to cover as much as possible. His eyes dart every bit Hank’s, searching for an explanation; any explanation. 

“It was an accident?” Connor answers weakly. 

“Connor.” Hank's voice drops in sadness. “Let me in.” 

Connor's head snaps up. “No I’m fine!”

“You’re not fucking fine, Connor,” Hank growls, resisting the urge to just find another, larger window and break that one too. “Just.” He sighs, angry fading at the broken look in his partner’s eyes. “Let me help, please.” 

Connor thinks it over for a moment, long enough that Hank almost repeats himself before he speaks. “You won’t tell Fowler? Or Conan? Or you’re cyberlife pals?” Hank doesn’t really know who the last two names are referring to but he nods anyway. Connor sighs before promptly turning around and heading out of the room. Hank stands there for a moment, LED spinning in confusion, before realizing the human was going to open the door and he moves to meet him. 

The door is already open when Hank gets there, so he just slips in and let’s it close behind him. Connor was on the ground, in a much less worrisome position, rubbing his dog’s belly. “I’m sorry, Sumo.” Hank hears the man whisper to the St. Bernard before turning to the android. Connor had pulled on a sweatshirt between his bedroom and the door, and was currently letting it swallow him whole. 

“Hi Hank,” Connor greets, voice breaking. 

“Connor,” Hank replies, sweeping in without hesitation and pulling the man into his arms. 

“Hank I’m okay. I calmed down a while ago. I just feel asleep,” Connor tries to explain, his voice muffled by the androids shoulder. 

“Shut up and let me hug up.” Hank pulls the human closer, listening to the beat of his heart because it meant Connor was alive. 

Alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so.... that happened. just warning the following chapters are going to be kinda dark mainly because my mental state is currently a mess. hope you enjoyed!


	9. 9%€999@&%\99&?9!=[€

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor gets some well deserved comfort because heading to a sex club.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope I wrote this well? Idk I've never experienced anything close to what Hank does for Connor here soooooooooo sorry if it's unrealistic.

They hug until Sumo starts whining and Connor detaches himself to feed him. It’s then that Hank pulls him into the bathroom, forcing him to sit on the edge of the bathtub while rooting around for a first aid kit. 

Hank’s eyes stray to the mirror as he looks, reading the various post-it notes Connor must have stuck there. Some of them where obviously taken from other sources, like “tomorrow will be better” or “you’re not alone”, while others were very different and definitely Connor originals, like “just stay calm and BE GAY” and “shave or else!!!”. They’re endearing, but also sad in the way that makes Hank realize his partner has been in a dark place before, and probably for a while. 

“You really don’t have to do this,” Connor says and the android forces himself to stop reading. 

“I‘m doing it,” Hank responds. Connor doesn’t fight him on it, too mentally exhausted to stop him.

“Mm.” Is all he says in response and Hank glances over to find him scratching at his shoulder. 

“Stop that,” Hank chides, grabbing Connor’s hand to stop him. He holds it a second longer than he has to, but Connor doesn’t stop him. “Take the sweatshirt off.”

“Trying to get me naked, huh Hank?” Connor jokes half heartedly. Hank sends him a ‘drop the bullshit and listen’ look. “Yeah, yeah.” The Lieutenant tugs the sweater off, struggling a bit but Hank doesn’t move to help, giving him his space. Once off, the piece of clothing is bunched between the man’s hands. Hank doesn’t note how tightly he holds on to it, like a lifeline, just kneels in front of his partner and takes his arm gently. 

He takes a moment to access the damage, noting the newly revealed wounds on Connor’s shoulder before getting to work. Quietly he wipes the dried blood away, relieved to find none of the cuts required stitches, before putting bandaids on the ones that were still bleeding. All Connor had was a pack of children orientated bandaids, so when Hank was done his arm was covered in a collage of Hello Kitties and Bob the Builders. He sits beside the tub to check on Connor’s shoulder, quickly identifying the circle marks as cigarette burns. Some of them are still raw, so after cleaning them he places bandaids on some and burn cream on the healing ones. 

“Connor,” Hank says once he’s done. He’s still sitting on the tub edge next to him, close enough that their knees touch. “I’m done. Does everything feel okay?”

Connor nods, not trusting his voice. He gulps down tears and turns to Hank. “I’m sorry.” 

“Why are you apologizing to me?” Hank asks, truly confused. 

“You shouldn’t have had to see me like that. I’m sorry for being weak. For being mean to you. For messing up this investigation.” Connor’s throat gets thicker the longer he talks, nearly choking at the end. “For being so-”

It’s Hank, not his programming, that answers. “Connor, the only person you’ve ever been mean to is yourself. You don’t owe me any apologies.”

Connor holds the sweater to his chest, thinking the words over. “You’re not mad?”

“No,” Hank answers without hesitation. “Worried as hell, but not mad.” 

“Oh. Amanda was mad,” the man says without really meaning to.

“Amanda?” 

“My adoptive mom.” Hank was surprised by this. Connor had never been too open about his past, other than his father. “So, why are you here?” Connor stands as he asks and promptly slips back into his sweater. Hank misses the closeness, but pushes the feeling down. 

“There’s a new case. A man died at a sex club downtown. They think deviants were involved,” Hank’s program relays as he follows Connor to the kitchen. Part of him, the one where software instability brewed, told him that Connor shouldn’t have to worry about this right now; that Hank should tuck Connor into bed and make him rest physically and emotionally. The cyberlife part rallied against this. 

“Sex club, huh.” Connor pauses in the motion of grabbing a mug from the sink. “That brings back memories.”

“Been to a lot of sex clubs, Connor?” Hank asks, eyebrow raised. The man swivels quickly and shakes his head. 

“No!” He shoots back, face flushed. 

“Mhm.” Something like jealousy bites at Hank’s mind as he watches the Lieutenant stumble through making himself coffee. He supposes it makes sense; Connor is a young man in his sexual prime, why wouldn’t he look for companions? Hank ignores the part of him that asks why he couldn’t be one of those companions. 

“Connor, are you sure you’re okay enough to go?” The android asks when Connor is pulling on a coat.

“I need this, Hank. I need something to focus on. And I really need a win.” Connor looks at him with pleading eyes and his partner immediately knows it’s true. It might not be healthy to work away his feelings, but Hank prefers it to other methods. And at least this way he has an excuse to keep an eye on him. 

“Let’s go then.” 

{%*%}

Connor had never been to this specific club - the Eden Club - before, but he’d been to a couple and knew what to expect; moving bodies, neon lights and loud music. In the past, when dragged to clubs by police academy friends, he’d found it a bit overwhelming, but right now it was exactly what he needed. He couldn’t focus on himself when on a case or in a place like this, so that meant he didn’t have to think about Hank finding him so vulnerable, the repercussions of relapsing into cutting, or the fact that his mental state was spiraling. 

“Lieutenant Reika and his plastic daddy. What the fuck are you two doing here?” Of course, Gavin has to be there because the world hates him. Connor thinks he handles it well by flipping him off. “What are you, twelve?” 

“No,” Connor retorts. “But I am on this case. You can leave now, Reed.” 

“I’ll leave when I want to, shit stick.”

“You’ll leave now,” Hank inserts, stepping forward and taking Gavin’s focus. “We’ve been assigned all deviancy cases, so you are not needed.” 

“Fuck off, plastic,” Reed growls. “The case is solved anyway. The guy got more than he could handle.” The guy he was talking about was the dead man strewn across the bed, and it had been assumed he died of a heart attack. Even from across the room Hank knows that isn’t the truth, but he doesn’t mention it, instead lets Reed storm out of the room like a scolded teenager. 

“Thanks, Hank,” Connor says, slumping from the tense position he’d been holding. 

“Putting Detetive Reed in his place is no burden,” Hank replies, earning a chuckle from the man. 

“So, the case.” Connor flips through a few pages of observations and inferences made by the CSI team and Reed, quickly ruling a lot of the theories incorrect. “Heart attack? That doesn’t add up. He obviously attacked the android, so it would make more sense that she fought back.”

“I agree, Lieutenant.” Hank reverts back to using his title because of the surrounding people. He moves forward to lean over the victim and quickly analyzes him. He had had a heart attack, but that wasn’t the cause of death. “His neck shows signs of severe bruising, as if someone choked him.” 

“The girl?” 

“Androids have no fingerprints, so I can’t tell from the bruises, but we can question her and find out.” Hank stands and kneels beside the girl, taking note of her various injuries before placing a hand on her bare stomach, causing the synthetic skin to recede. 

“Um, what are you doing?” Connor asks, somewhat creeped out. “Is this some weird android thing? You’re not like, feeling her up, right?” 

Hank turns and gives him a deadpan look. “Yes I am stopping in the middle of an investigation to quote ‘get some.’” 

Connor laughs sheepishly. “Yeah nevermind. Just keep doing whatever you’re doing.”

“I’m bringing her back online so we can question her,” Hank explains as he turns back to continue what he’s doing, reconnecting wires within her torso. 

“Ooooh that makes sens-”

The android bolts up with a gasp and pushes away from Hank, scared and breathing hard. Connor stops, suddenly hit with the full force of what they’d done; bring someone back to life in the place they died, with only a few more minutes before they shut down again. He gulps and steps back, letting Hank take over the interrogation as he realizes that Hank probably doesn’t even care. He was technology anyway, so why should he care about anything? For his mission? 

A small part of the man knows it’s just his fragile self esteem talking, but can’t help but ask; Why should he care about Connor?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed! And thank you everyone for the comments!!! Y'all are so nice and they make me happy :) Not gonna lie I'm really bad at commenting bc I worry too much about what to say so literally NO PRESSURE. I'm mostly writing this to satisfy my imagination.


	10. 1010&$%]*{£10![*}^+1010

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hank and Connor have fun(?) at a sex club. Meanwhile author is miserable trying to write fight scene.

“Lieutenant,” Hank says after the Traci model deactivates again, this time permanently. The idea bugs him slightly, but he’s able to stay focused on the investigation. “I believe there was another android in the room that fled the scene.” He turns to his partner only to find him lost in thought. His hand was once again at his shoulder, scratching where band aids now where. 

“Connor,” Hank says more softly, partly so no other officers hear and partly not to startle him. The android steps forward but before he can grab onto the scratching hand Connor looks up, suddenly aware again, and steps back from the reach. 

“Another android.” Connor repeats, letting his grip on his shoulder go. “We should look for them. They couldn’t have gone far in their Eden Club Uniform.” Without further word he leaves the room and goes to talk to Officer Haley about their findings. 

Hank watches him go before dropping his hand. Had he done something wrong? 

His system alerts him to a rise in software instability, but this time rather than worry Hank just feels annoyed; is he really at the point of being insecure? He needs to focus on this mission now, not worry about messing up what he has with Connor - whatever that is.

Hank leaves the room and gives the Lieutenant some space by circling the room, looking for anything that might help. There aren’t any cameras, nor many human eye witnesses. All there are is androids; dancing, cleaning, smiling seductively. Questioning them all would take forever and likely result in nothing much, but maybe, Hank realizes, one of them saw something. 

HK800 walks back towards the crime scene and approaches a tube next to the door. He curses under his breath when he realizes he needs a human to access it. He considers asking one of the other officers, but calculates a high risk of just being scoffed at, so he turns to Connor instead.

“Lieutenant Reika,” Hank calls out, pulling Connor’s attention from Officer Haley. “I require your assistance.” Connor sighs, but sends a thumbs up in acknowledgement before bidding farewell to Haley. 

“You called?” Connor says when he arrives at his side, face flat.

“I need you to purchase this android for me. Just for a moment.” Connor raises an eyebrow impossibly high.

“Hank, I understand that you might have some needs, or whatever, but we’re at a crime scene.” 

“Connor, just do it,” Hank says, rubbing his face in cross between a mimicry of human exhaustion and very real android exasperation. 

Connor thinks for a moment before groaning. “Fine. But you have to explain to Fowler why it’s on my expense account,” he says, pointing at Hank with strict eyes before placing his hand on the scanner. Now successfully purchased, the android steps out of the now open tube, looking Connor up and down seductively. 

“Thank you for your purchase,” she says, words dripping with sex appeal. “I’ll take you to your room now.” She holds out an arm for Connor to take. Most other men would probably be hot and bothered by the display, but Connor mostly just seems embarrassed. 

“Hank,” he says, looking to his partner for help. Hank snorts before grabbing the girl’s arm and deactivating his skin. She turns to him as the memory probe begins and Hank gets thrown into her memories. 

Most of it was useless, just footage of the room swaying as the girl moved with the music, but Hank manages to catch a view of a female android leaving the crime scene around the estimated time of death. He pulls away, letting Connor shuffle to android back into her tube because “sorry I changed my mind. No it's not because of you!” 

“The other android was another WR400 unit with blue hair. She left the room and went that way.” Hank points towards one of the other rooms. “Then I lost sight of her.” 

“That’s good to know. I’ll go add it to the report.” Connor is about to turn and walk away when Hank grabs his hand. The man turns back and Hank quickly drops the appendage. 

“Lieutenant- I mean, Connor,” Hank says lowly. “I would appreciate it if you helped me investigate further. I need you to access other Traci models.” Connor’s face falls - Hank only needs him for the mission - and even though HK800 doesn’t know what he did wrong, he feels bad. “Am I causing you discomfort?”

Connor quickly shakes his head and smiles without meaning. “No. Lead the way.” A part of the android wants to point out he’s lying, but he doesn’t want to push. So instead Hank tells himself the Lieutenant will be happier once they have a deviant in custody and nods before moving in the direction the suspect went in. 

They round the room in silence, with Hank leading them from android and Connor purchasing them when needed. They end up having to double back a couple times before finding a custodian android who saw her go through a door marked ‘Staff Only’. 

Hank opens the door slowly, peeking his head in to scan for threats, before stepping through. Connor follows with his gun drawn but replaces it quickly after realizing they weren’t in immediate danger. The room was used for storage, full of boxes of spare parts, a table for repairs, and lines of androids standing silently and unmoving. Connor points at his eyes before moving his finger in a circle, signaling that they should sweep the room. Hank nods and does just that. 

After finding no one hiding in the obvious places, the android starts looking in plain sight; the rows of traci models. There’s a lot of them, and it takes a moment but he spots a flash of blue hair. He’s about to move forward and look closer when someone slams into him. They’re a different android, a female traci with her hair cut short. She catches him by surprise and they grapple for control. 

Connor looks up when Hank grunts, and quickly pulls his gun out again. “DPD! Put your hands up,” he tries to say but he’s quickly preoccupied by the blue haired android jumping at his side and wrestling with him for the gun. 

Hank glances over at his partner long enough for the deviant to slam him into a container, almost tipping him over, but before he falls he grabs her by the waist and flips her over it. She lands on the floor behind the box and he jumps over, about to tackle her. She manages to kick him off and flips them so she’s on top. Her punches are predictable and easy to block but Hank’s stress spikes when he sees her grab a nearby flathead screwdriver. He manages to stop it from piercing his eye and throws her off long enough to stand up. 

Out of the corner of Hank’s eye he can see the blue haired Traci climbing onto a box to jump onto the Lieutenant, crashing his back against a steel reinforcement. HK800 barely moves out of the way of the short haired android’s screwdriver as she swipes at him again and again as his attention is divided between himself and Connor. She finally drops the screwdriver, instead kicking at the deviant hunter. 

Hank is becoming desperate; he needs to disable her if he is to help his partner. Without much thought he shoves a shelf into her way only for her to push it away. The same happens with the cart he drags over in a rush so instead he lunges, trying to force her against a column but she keeps fighting. 

Next to him the Lieutenant grunts in pain as he’s slammed onto one of the repair tables. Hank is both surprised and proud to see he’s still holding onto his gun as he struggles to get the blue haired android off of him. 

Hank’s focus is yanked back to himself as the deviant pushes him, making him fall from a short loading dock, but he holds onto her and they both end up sprawled in the dirt. 

Above them, the blue haired Traci lets go of Connor, allowing him to roll off the metal table and onto the ground as she rushes to the fallen deviant. She helps her up in the span of time it takes for Hank to recover from the fall, and they take off down an alley. His vision comes into focus on their hands, clasped together, and something falls into place; they weren’t just deviants, they were in love. 

Connor crashes forward as Hank scrambles to his feet. The Lieutenant tries to grab at them but they push him aside, his gun clattering to the ground as he’s forced into a wall. The deviants are trying to climb the fence when Hank bounds towards them and drags the blue haired android off the fence. The three grapple with each other, the two deviants working together as Hank tries to devote one hand to each. It’s hard to manage, and they’re able to get a few hits in; fists, a pole, the wall slam into him. He manages to tackle one but is quickly hit with a trash can. He falls next to the Lieutenant's lost gun and without much thought he grabs it and turns to aim at the deviant running towards him. 

His intention - no, his program’s intention - is to shoot. But as Hank hesitates, thinking back at the way they move to protect each other, the way they look at each other, and how they held hands. They just want to be together. Like Hank with Connor. Hank’s processors stall at the thought. Wherever it came from he doesn’t know, but he does know it’s true. 

Hank’s eyes slide to glance at Connor, and he lowers the gun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oooooh Hank is starting to notice his feelings.   
> Hope you enjoyed!


	11. $%11^]*€{•1111€¥[*}^£|<11?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor and Hank let the deviants go, and head to the park. Angst ensues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took so long for me to post!!! I'm sorry. School started and its been a rough week.

After lowering the gun, the short haired Traci promptly kicks Hank in the face, and he lets it happen. He drops the gun and the two girls move together, checking each other for injuries before the blue haired android steps forward. 

"When that man broke the other Traci, I knew I was next,” the android says, voice cracking with emotion. “I was so scared. I begged him to stop, but he wouldn't.” She clenches her fist. “And so I put my hands around his throat, and I squeezed until he stopped moving. I didn't mean to kill him. I just wanted to stay alive and get back to the one I love.” She turns, grabbing ahold of her companions hand. “I wanted her to hold me in her arms again. Make me forget about the humans, their smell of sweat and their dirty words.” 

Hank’s pump clenches at her words. He could never understand what they’ve gone through, but he could relate to mistreatment. Apparently Connor feels for them as well, because when he stands all he does is walk forward to stand beside his partner, hands held high in a show of nonviolence. 

“I don’t know if it means anything, I’m sorry,” Connor says quietly. 

“Your right, it doesn’t,” the short haired Traci retorts. She pulls at her lovers hand, signalling that they should go, but Connor stops them.

“Wait.” He shrugs off his coat and holds it out. “Here, take this.” Connor nudges Hank’s shoulder, nodding at the androids jacket, and HK800 follows suit. The blue Traci steps forward cautiously, snatching the clothing away. She quickly helps the other slip one on before pulling on a coat. 

“Thank you.” She says before the two climb the fence, and leave. 

Once they’re out of sight, Connor slumps. “Fuck,” he groans, dragging his hand down his face. “Fuuuuuuuuck.” The swearing goes on as he picks up his gun and goes back into the building. When Officer Haley asks where he’s going he just waves and swears under his breath. Hank, confused, worried, and without any mission other than ‘Protect Connor’, follows him as he goes. 

Hank continues even as Connor passes by his own car, continuing down the sidewalk with his eyes on the ground. The android watches subconsciously, making sure he doesn’t walk into oncoming traffic by accident, or not-so-accident, while his mind wanders. Hank runs through his memories files again and again, going over that thought continuously; the one that saw the same love between the two Traci’s between Connor and him. 

Hank wasn’t a deviant, he was sure of it because his Handler was still hanging around bugging him, but he can’t shake the feeling of Connor being more than just a part of his mission. Connor’s a part of his life - no, wait, HK800 isn’t alive. Hank groans at the inner turmoil. Nothing made sense anymore. 

He’s almost too busy introspecting to notice Connor turning, but he manages to catch it in time to follow the Lieutenant across the street and into a city park.

{%*%}

The air is cold, the ground covered in a layer of snow, but Connor doesn’t feel it, despite having no coat. He pulls his hands into his sweater, and more for comfort than anything, lets it swallow him whole. Too much is going on all at once and there's too many questions; he wants comfort but doesn’t know who to turn to - he doesn’t know if he even wants to turn to anyone and burden them with his struggle - and he doesn’t know where Hank’s heart lies - the mission or his morals - and it’s all just too much to take. 

Connor doesn’t realize he got lost in his own head until he lifts his eyes and realizes he's made his way all the way to the lake’s edge. The water spans out in front of him, dark waves highlighted by the sheen of reflecting lights. It’s beautiful in a way that makes him want to jump in. He doesn’t, though, his body deciding to sit on a bench instead because he had no energy left to do anything. Except light a cigarette, that is. Connor’s only three inhales in when Hank comes up behind him. 

“Hey,” Connor says, coughing when his voice comes out scratchy. “Pretty, right?”

“Yeah.” Hank follows Connor’s gaze to the lake. “I bet it’s nicer during the day,” he says, hinting that it was late. The lieutenant doesn’t get the message. 

“It is. I used to come here a lot. Before.” He floats even further away, remembering all those days his parents had taken him here with his brother, Conan. His dad would push Conan on the swings while his mom followed Connor around the park as he stalked birds and squirrels, never quite catching them. All of it went away within the span of a second, enough time for their car to crash and his parents to die on impact. 

“Connor, can I ask you something?”

“If I say no, will you ask anyway?” Connor snorts without feeling. 

Hank suppresses the urge to say something sarcastic. “Why did you hurt yourself?” 

The man goes silent, eyes focused on the cigarette as he twisted it between his fingers. “It helps. The physical pain feels better than what goes on up here.” He taps the side of his head. “So I guess I do it to escape. Get my brain out of my head.” He chuckles, realizing how little sense it made after he said it. “It’s stupid. You probably don’t understand.” 

Hank mulls this over. Connor’s right, he doesn’t understand. But Hank can still accept. “It’s not stupid if it’s true,” he counters. “And I know you’re not lying.” 

Connor looks at him weirdly, having expected some pre-programmed response like ‘you should stop’ or ‘you are mentally unstable, I will be recommending a new partner.’ 

“Thanks, I guess,” he responds before turning back to the lake. Connor waits for Hank to leave or something.

“You said you came here a lot before,” Hank says, stubbornly not leaving so Connor can break down in peace. “Before what?”

“Before…” Connor sighs. “Before everything changed. The beginning of the end, or some shit.” He can feel Hank’s eyes on him and he turns his face, letting shadows cover it. 

“Poetic,” Hank grunts, not pushing the subject. Instead he swerves to a point of interest he knows the Lieutenant is invested in; work. “Are all your cases usually this much work?” 

Connor mood sours even more, if possible. Of course, he tells himself, Hank was just engaging in small talk before getting on with what he really wanted to talk about; his mission. 

“Could you just shut up for once,” Connor snaps. A small part of him feels guilty but right now he’s too enraged and depressed to care. 

“What’s wrong, Connor?” Hank turns to face him, his silhouette outlined by the lights echoing off the lake. 

“Oh don’t act like you care about anything other than your mission.” He stands, cigarette hanging from a hand at his side.

“I don’t understand.” 

Connor full on laughs this time. “Why should you? I thought you were like her, but I guess not. I thought you cared about me but all you care about is how I can help complete your fucking mission.” 

Hank moves forward, concern shining through in his eyes. “Connor I think you're projecting your thoughts about yourself onto me. I do care.”

“Stop analyzing me!” Connor snaps. “I know myself better than you. I know who I am and what I’m not. I’m not stupid. I know this whole ‘taking care of me’ thing is just bullshit.” His hands gesture wildly as he speaks. 

“Connor-“ 

“Shut up!” He yells, his voice echoing across the park. “You’re just an android with a mission. I shouldn’t have expected anything more from you. I shouldn’t have expected you to feel anything for me- for anyone!” 

“Lieutenant.” Hank would be shaking him by the shoulders if the man didn’t flinch away whenever he moved closer. “You know that’s not true.”

“How?! How am I supposed to know.” Connor's voice falls in melancholy. Hank decides to fuck it all and moves in for a hug but before he can reach him there’s a gun barrel pointed at his forehead. The android freezes, taking in the gun in Connor’s hand, its trajectory right between Hank’s eyes. “Do you even feel fear? Are you afraid of dying?” The Lieutenant asks quietly, hand shaking. 

“It would be regrettable,” Hank says simply. A small part of him, hidden behind walls and walls of code, tells him that he doesn’t want to die, that he wants to rip the gun from Connor’s hand. He shows as much of it as his program allows. 

Connor just grits his teeth. It wasn’t good enough, he wanted to know if Hank cared. He needed to know because if the android didn’t, he had nothing left. His hand moves without much thought. “What about me?” Connor asks, gun pressed against his own temple. “Would you give a crap if I died, or just get a new partner, Hank?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... so yeah, that happened. gotta love cliff hangers. Till next time!


	12. 12^]\<121212@)-%]+~12?!\~12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor has a gun. Hank is worried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: this chapter isn't especially graphic but it's pretty heavy.

Hank jerks at the sight of Connor, gun against his own head and tears in his eyes. “Connor you’re not in the right min-”

“I know that!” Connor yells back, gun rattling with the force. “Would you care? Tell me honestly.”

“Just put the gun down,” Hank responds, trying to keep his voice steady when all he wants to do is scream. He steps forward with his hands in front of him, calculating the risk of grabbing the gun from Connor’s hand. The human stumbles back, though, nearly tripping in a way that makes Hank’s thirium pump freeze for a moment. 

“Stay there! Don’t come any closer.” Connor’s voice is shaky, his breaths short and fast. Hank scans him quickly and recognizes the beginnings of an anxiety attack and knows he needs to intervene as soon as possible. But now the android couldn’t step closer even if he tried. A red wall of code telling him to STAY AWAY constricts his movement; his program having put it there because of the Lieutenant’s command and Cyberlife keeping him out of ‘unnecessary danger’. 

Hank’s fist clenches at the idea of protecting Connor from shooting himself being an ‘unnecessary danger.’ If anything it seemed a more necessary danger than chasing Rupert Travis across rooftops, or fighting the two Tracis, or anything Cyberlife told him to do. 

“Would you care if I died?” Connor asks, his voice low. He won’t meet Hank’s eyes.

His programming urges him to leave the situation; he was never coded to care. But he does. “Of course I would,” Hank says softly. The wall in front of him shakes slightly at the admission. “I would be fucking devasted.” 

Connor looks up, finally meeting his gaze. The human’s eyes are stained red with his strain against tears. His grip on the gun softens, before he lets his arm fall to his side, and the gun with it. “I’m sorry, Hank,” he sobs and falls to his knees, ignoring the ice that digs into his knees. “I’m so sorry.”

“Connor let me help.” Hank’s still standing behind his wall, unable to move as he watches his partner cry in the snow, a gun still held loosely by his side. 

“Just leave. I’m not good for you or the investigation or anyone.” He rubs a hand under his nose to wipe away the tears and snot. “I pointed a gun at you for Christ’s sake.” Connor rocks back to sit with his knees to his chest, one arm hugging his knees while the other stays on the ground; on the gun. “Just leave, Hank, please,” the man practically begs, voice barely there. 

“If-” If you wish, Lieutenant, is what his program tries to force through his mouth. Hank doesn’t let it finish, instead he attacks. Without another thought he punches the red wall in his head as hard as he can. He pushes everything into it; his irritation at humans, his guilt at hunting down other androids, his love for Connor and his desire to hold him in his arms and never let go. It shatters after one punch, crumbling into red squares that dissolve into the snow around him. Hank could cry at the feeling of freedom, instead he moves. 

“If you say that again, I’ll beat you up,” Hank says in the most loving way possible. He kneels next to Connor, quickly grabbing the handgun and tucking it into the back of his waistband, before pressing the shaking man’s face into his chest. “If you died I wouldn’t know what the fuck to do. If you died I’d lose the only good person I’ve ever known. If you died I would be so fucking sad I can’t even explain how bad it’d be.” 

Connor calms slightly, the mixture of Hank’s low voice and loving words soothing him enough to breath correctly even if he feels like he might throw up. He pulls away from the android’s chest to analyze his face. “Hank, did you…?” 

“Yeah,” Hank answers, hearing the unspoken question. 

“Well shit.” Connor pauses to digest the information, but eventually smiles. “Congratulations?” 

Hank snorts as he uses his sleeve to wipe the tears from his partner’s face. “I should thank you. All those fucking heart attacks you gave me really paid off.” 

Connor cracks a smile at this. “You are very welcome.”

“Yeah yeah. Don’t get cocky you son of a bitch,” Hank grumbles under his breath. This time he earns a laugh. 

“Deviancy fits you, Hank.”

“Oh shut up you’ll make me blush.” Hank grabs Connor’s hand when he tries to poke at the synthetic skin of his cheek. “You’re freezing!” 

“Not really,” Connor protests. 

“Come on.” Hank keeps Connor’s hand in his as he lifts him to his feet. “Let's go home.”

Connor doesn’t mention that Hank just called his house ‘home’, opting instead to melt into his side and let himself be led out of the park. 

{%*%}

“So,” Connor says after a sip of tea Hank had all but forced into his hands. Similarly to how Hank had swaddled him in blankets against his will. Also similarly to how Connor had forced Hank to join him under the blankets. “Are you going to Jericho?”

Hank blinks, his LED spinning yellow for a moment. “I haven’t thought about it,” he answered honestly.

“You can go if you want. Be with your people.” Connor talks to the cup of tea, giving Hank one last chance to leave guilt-free if he wants to. 

“I…” Hank pauses and goes through all the possibilities before landing on a plan he likes. “I want to help other androids, but I don’t want to leave.” Connor looks up and they hold eyes. “Maybe I could stay as your partner, and we could help androids that way? If it’s too hard to go behind Fowler’s back then we don’t have to.” 

Connor talks another gulp of hot beverage while he thinks it over. He’s always been dedicated to his work with his entire being, at least before being put on deviant cases. He’d seen androids as more than machines for a long time, so maybe it was time to put deviants above his mission. The idea of not having a mission troubles him, so he thinks of it as a new mission, ‘help the revolution’, and with that, he accepts it. 

“It’ll be hard, but it’ll be worth it,” Connor responds with new found determination. Hank grins. “And I’ve always wanted to be a double agent.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just want to point out that what Connor does in this chapter is NOT OKAY. He basically threatens to kill himself if Hank doesn't care for him. While he isn't trying to be manipulative, he is, and if anyone does this to you, get them help if you can, distance yourself if you can't. That can be a big red flag for a toxic/abusive relationship. That isn't really the case here with Connor and Hank, but it's still not cool in any context.


	13. %/!1313(?/&131313{€~+13sx

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More emotional pain for Connor because I love him :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow a new chapter. surprise!

They spend the rest of the night in the same position. Even after Connor finally gave in to sleep he did so leaning against Hank’s shoulder. The android, and recent deviant, knows he could move, but he doesn’t. Instead he savors the closeness, letting Connor’s breathing soak in as he goes into stasis and lets himself rest a bit. 

{%*%}

Connor opens his eyes to darkness. He looks around, his eyes catching on the empty spot next to him. “Hank?” He asks, standing up. The world tilts slightly as he does, struggling to catch up to his sudden movement. Somewhere a phone rings. 

Suddenly he’s across the kitchen, phone in hand. He doesn’t notice the irregularity in time and space, focusing instead on the message. It was a tip from Andre.

‘North dock, Warehouse 7,’ it reads and he immediately knows it pertains to the case he was working on. He leaves the house, jacket already settled on his shoulders, having already forgotten about Hank. 

Time blinks and he’s at the Warehouse. It’s impossibly huge, towering over the man’s head and a part of him is yelling to run to not go inside to leave. His legs keep going. 

He’s behind a crate now. Subconsciously he knows he snuck in the back, but he doesn’t remember it. The air is hazy as he peers around the crate, watching a group of thugs. Their faces are shrouded but he knows who they are. He’d studied their files for weeks in connection to a red ice ring, but he never expected all of them to be in the same place at the same time. In the corner is a small junkyard; a pile of androids the dealers had sucked dry of thirium and discarded. 

A thought rings out, telling him to call for backup. He doesn’t. He pulls out a recording device and presses play. 

A scream makes Connor jump and he almost drops his gun. An android is in the center of the room. It was on the floor, half naked and dripping blue blood. The men were laughing, taking turns zapping her with a taser or simply kicking the shit out of her. Connor doesn’t know how long she’d been there, but she didn’t have much longer. He didn’t move though. His feet were cemented to the floor and no matter how he tugged he couldn’t move. 

“pPleazzze stoP,” the android says, her damaged components making her words uneven. 

The guys laugh. Connor shifts uneasily. As part of the DPD he knows he shouldn’t interfere; there are too many of them, and the risk isn’t enough for an android. But her pain looked real, and her screams sounded human. 

They pull out a lighter. She's already dosed into gasoline. Connor knows what is about to happen. His hand hovers over the backup button. He hasn’t gotten his evidence yet, though, and she’s just an android, just an android, just a-

She turns and meets his eyes. She turns and doesn’t look away. She stares at him and he stares back even as they drop the lighter, even as she’s lit on fire and her mouth’s open in a scream that envelopes his entire being and drowns him and-

Connor opens his eyes again. 

{%*%}

Hank is still in stasis when he hears it. A first his audio sensors dismiss it as unnecessary, but then the gasping starts and his eyes snap open. Connor’s still beside him, but the blanket had been thrown away and the man’s head was in his hands. Hank moves slowly, letting him catch his breath before speaking. 

“Connor?” He asks, placing a hand on the other’s shoulder. Connor tenses, but relaxes once he realizes it’s him. 

“Sorry.” Connor talks a deep, shaky breath. “Sorry for waking you up.” 

“Androids don’t sleep,” Hank reminds him. 

“Oh, right,” he responds distractedly, rubbing his eyes. “Lucky.” 

Hank looks the man over, noticing the residual tremor in his hands and the haunted look in his eyes. “Nightmare?” 

“How’d you know?” Connor asks but immediately regrets it; he doesn’t want to hear about a list of symptoms he’s displaying or some WebMD shit. 

“Lucky guess,” the android responds, deadpan. 

Connor rolls his eyes and lets his hands fall to his lap. “Har har.” His breathing had stabilized slightly, and he was able to focus on his partner next to him. He doesn’t know how Hank did it, but he never ceased to calm him down. The leftovers of the nightmare still stuck to him, though, and he stood to grab a cigarette. 

“Hey. Where are you going?” Hank asks, eyeing the man as he reaches for the pocket of his coat. 

Connor freezes, hand gripping the cigarette box but still in the coat pocket. “The bathroom?” 

“You need cigarettes to take a piss?” Hank responds, unimpressed. 

“No, but-” he stops himself when he realizes how whiny his voice sounded. He clears his throat. “I just, I need a quick smoke.” Their eyes meet and Hank stares him down, unblinking. Connor gulps. “Please?” 

Hank sighs, grumbling something about how he looked like a puppy before standing up. “How ‘bout we make a deal. You smoke, you talk.” 

Connors eyes squint with suspicion. There are way too many touchy topics about Connor’s past for this proposed conversation to be a fun one. But his mind was yearning for the feeling of nicotine and his addiction wins out. “Fine.” 

He rips the cigarette box from the pocket, possibly with a bit too much aggression than necessary, and leaves onto the porch. Connor lifts himself up into his usual spot, sitting on the wooden railing and leans against one of the columns.

Hank comes in after he lights the first one, and walks right into a cloud of smoke. “Ah goddammit, Connor,” he groans, waving a hand in front of his face. It didn’t bother his lungs, but the smoke got in his optical units and it took a moment to get vented out. 

Connor snickers but turns his head to exhale in a different direction. The two lapse into silence as Hank finds a comfortable place to sit, eventually settling for leaning against the column across from his partner. 

“That was seven drags if I counted correctly,” Hank says after a while. “I’d say that’s worth two and one third questions.” 

“I’d say-” Connor begins to mimic him, but is cut off by a sharp cough. His body shakes sharply as the cold and the cigarettes get to him at the same time. 

Hank steps forward, worried the lieutenant was going to fall and jab the cigarette in his eye. 

Connor waves him off as his lungs calm down. “I’m fine.” He clears his throat one last time before wiping his eyes. 

“Mhm,” Hank replies, unimpressed, but leans back against the column. “Don’t think you can get out of our deal that quickly. What happened back there? You looked like you saw a ghost.”

Connor puffs before answering shortly. “Bad dream.”

Hank crosses his arms. “One hell of a bad dream.”

“I guess,” he answers, avoiding the deviant’s eyes. He focuses on the street; he’s lived here for almost four years now but knew none of his neighbors. What are they doing while he’s being interrogated? Sleeping probably, like fucking normal people. 

“Connor,” Hank nearly groans with irritation. “I’m not an idiot. I’m an android for shits sake. What was your nightmare about?” 

“Can’t you just look it up in my files,” Connor bites back. They meet eyes for a moment, and his hardened eyes sober. “Sorry. I’m just- I don’t know. I don’t know how to talk about it. It’s stupid really.” He pauses, wishing that Hank would just say something. The silence picks at him until he starts again. “I get them a lot. Nightmares, I mean. They’re always about her and I guess I just don’t understand.” The words sound so helpless and when Hank catches his eyes they’re prickling with tears. At this point Connor can’t stop talking. The words tumble out before he regrets them. “I don’t understand why this women I’d never met before haunts me more than the death of my own fucking parents.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm a senior and therefore have to care about things like getting into college and applications and school but at the moment I'm just way to depressed to care... but I wrote a chapter so that's a win?
> 
> Anyway, have a good day! Stay safe.


	14. 14!$@1414[%|+~€’14/?!1414

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor talks about the case that both ruined and made him. Hank listens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took longer than usual! But within a month so not too too bad, right? Anyway, thank you for reading. Hope you enjoy.

Connor tells Hank the entire story after that. He talks about the red ice ring he discovered, the one he suspected was run behind the scenes of a small but respected technology company. 

“No one believed me,” he explained between puffs. “I don’t blame them. I probably sounded crazy.” The Lieutenant snorts at the memory of himself, almost right out of training, following his superiors to their cars to rant about his conspiracy theories. “I was stubborn then, though-”

“Still are,” Hank corrects. The android had calculated whether or not it was worth interrupting him, and found that there was a 79% chance it would make Connor smile. It does. 

“Still am,” the man echoes. “I decided to investigate myself. To be honest I was obsessed, and I probably could’ve been arrested for stalking, but the guys - I mean the suspects - never called me in. Which makes sense because they were avoiding the cops and all that but that doesn’t matter,” Connor waves his hand to clear that train of thought. “Anyway, one day I got a tip from Andre.”

“The man from the smoke shop,” Hank clarifies. Connor nods as he sucks on his cigarette. It was almost gone by now. 

“Yeah. He can be a dick but he’s a good informant.”

“You can say that again,” Hank murmurs too low to hear.

Connor extinguishes his cigarette in a small dish on a nearby railing before letting it fall into a small pot he’d dedicated to buds. “I followed it to a warehouse. At that point I thought I had the ring pinned as a small operation connected to the shipping manager of the tech company, Eric Snozter.” 

Hank can feel the but coming. “You were wrong?” 

“So, so wrong,” he responds before continuing. “They were bigger than I could’ve ever imagined. Dealing across state boundaries and raking in millions of dollars.” He pauses to light another cigarette. “When I got there, they were torturing a cleaning model. An android, I mean. At the time I was a stickler for protocol so I did nothing…” his voice breaks as he remembers the desperation in her eyes. “ I was recording the entire thing, trying to get the evidence I needed to make the arrest, and she just screamed and screamed. It sounded so, so real. I should’ve called backup earlier. I could have saved her!” 

“Connor,” Hank says, cutting off the Lieutenant’s destructive train of thought. “Breathe between sentences.”

Connor nods and almost breaks down in hysterical giggles. “I could have saved her,” he repeats, flatter. “But I choose not to. By the time backup showed up she was long dead. There was a shootout afterwards. I took out three of them and got put in every paper as a hero. What a fucking joke.” He snorts and takes a drag. “Hero's don’t let innocent people die.” 

Hank doesn’t know what to say. A couple dialogue prompts pop up but all of them feel too pitiful. Connor doesn’t need pity, nor does he need Hank to disregard everything he said. Unfortunately, Connor’s right. He had let her die, and neither of them can change that. 

“Thank you for trusting me,” Hank finally says. 

His partner jumps hums and flicks ash from the end of his cigarette. “Hate me yet?”

“Not anymore than usual.” They meet gazes and Hank sends him a genuine look of compassion. 

“Thanks,” Connor says quietly, but means it times 100. “For listening. And not leaving.”

“Anytime.” They lapse into silence.

“Okay, my turn,” the human finally says. He puts his cigarette out before turning to Hank. “What’s your favorite color?”

{%*%}

They’d talked until the sun rose, sometimes lapsing into silence but comfortably so. Connor regrets it now though, as yawns for the fifth time in the duration of the elevator. Twenty minutes ago they’d gotten called in to work another deviant crime scene; apparently a group had broken into the radio tower. He steps out when the doors open, but turns back when Hank doesn’t follow.

“Hank?” 

Hank blinks, pulling back from his mind and into the real world. He’d been busy convincing his handler that he was still 100% robot, and had been standing in the stopped elevator for at least 30 seconds now doing nothing.

“You having fun in there?” Connor asks, eyebrow raised and smiling widely, as if he’d caught the other doing something embarrassing. 

“I was busy,” Hank replies flatly, unimpressed with his partner’s humor.

“Doing what, looking at my ass?” Connor replies teasingly. 

Hank’s eyes find the subject matter. “What ass?” He grins at the look on Connor’s face as he steps forward and walks towards the crime scene, the Lieutenant in tow. 

“Jerk!” He gasps and slaps Hank’s shoulder lightly. “I’ll let you know I have a great-” He cuts off sharply when a short man in a trench coat starts walking towards them. “A uh great… a …. A great.”

“A great what, Lieutenant Reika?” The man, Agent Perkins asks, having overheard Connor’s fumble. Connor opens his jaw to answer but has no idea what to say, rather his cheeks begin to flush and his eyes flicker anywhere but Perkin’s piercing eyes.

“I believe the Lieutenant meant to say ‘he has a great night planned’,” Hank steps in, his voice forced polite and even. 

“Mm,” Perkins answers, and Hank knows he didn’t really care. “It’s been a while, Reika.”

Connor nods before realizing he should probably speak. “Yeah. Two years, right?”

“Two years,” the agent confirms. “I hear you’re still the same reckless kid.” He leans in and lowers his voice, but everyone around could still hear if they wanted. “Now listen, I know you’re all full of yourself because you were the ‘youngest lieutenant ever.’” He puts air quotes around the title as if it’s not really real. “But just because you got lucky once doesn’t mean I trust you.” Connor’s soul feels like it's being pulled out and beat against the wall. “Don’t fuck up my crime scene.” 

Hank watches, quietly steaming. His fists clench in an effort to control his anger because by-golly, punching Perkins seems worth being outed as deviant right now. Thankfully, or not depending on how much you hate the FBI agent, he leaves before Hank gets the chance. 

“Well… that happened,” Connor mumbles, not quite over his shock. 

“I swear to god if he comes near you again I’m breaking his nose,” Hank growls, eyes trained on the back of Perkins’ head as he walks away. 

“It’s not like he was wrong,” the human points out, looking at his hands where he wished a cigarette was. 

“Connor, seriously? He’s a dick.” 

Connor looks around with wide eyes, making sure no one overheard. “Shush!” He whisper-yells. “You’re supposed to be android still. You have to act the part at work.”

“What’s the point of free will if I can’t use it!” Hank whisper-yells back. 

“You can, just…” Connor sighs, rubbing his eyes. “Just not here, please?” He gives Hank his best puppy dog eyes. 

Hank’s anger melts quickly. He understands Connor’s worry. “Fine, as long as you don’t let people push you around like that in front of me.”

Connor hesitates to answer. “I’ll try,” he finally says. “Now, let's check out the broadcast.”

“I actually saw it already,” the deviant answers. His handler had shown him the recording in the elevator when debriefing him. “I’ll go check out the kitchen. I overheard some of the detectives talking about a possible deviant working here. If so, we should be the ones to find out so we can. . .” He trails off, not wanting anyone to overhear their plan to help the deviant. Connor gets the message though, and nods. 

“Okay, good luck.” He waves slightly as he leaves towards the control center. 

“Don’t get jumped again!” Hank somewhat jokes; Connor has gotten jumped at nearly every crime scene they’d visited. 

Connor turns to smile and salutes. “Yes sir!” He walks backwards as he does, and runs right into the doorway. 

Hank cringes and laughs somehow simultaneously. Shit, he thinks, I'm in love with an idiot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the author is really mean to her characters in the next chapter and would like to apologize ahead of time; 
> 
> I'm sorry.
> 
> You have been warned


	15. //?15&@1515[^|£=|!\1515

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone dies, Connor grieves, and Conan makes a guest appearance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry? I said I was going to be mean.

When Connor was 16 and living with his adoptive mother Amanda, he’d stumbled across a young girl about to throw her pet goldfish into the ocean. 

When he asked why, she’d said “I’m going on a trip, and I’m scared it’ll be dead when I get back.”

Having witnessed death already, Connor was accustomed to that fear and told her he could take the goldfish in. The girl looked at him like he had three eyes, but in the end Connor walked home with a new friend - the fish - whom he promptly named Aqua. 

Looking back the name was even stupider than Conan naming his cat Turtle, but Connor was lonely and he really didn’t care what it’s name was because he wasn’t alone anymore.

24 hours after taking in Aqua, he found the fish dead on the floor of his bedroom. He knows now that Amanda had tipped the bowl over because she was infuriated that he’d bring home a pet without asking, but at the time Connor was convinced he was cursed; that he was being punished for his parent’s deaths. 

He got over it eventually, specifically when he met Sumo in the shelter and decided to fuck it all and adopt the puppy. But the memory still sticks with him, and Connor firmly believes that all good things end. 

And that’s why Connor should have seen this coming - ‘this’ being the first person he grows close to dying; ‘this’ being walking into the radio tower kitchen to find Hank, shirt stained blue with thirium; ‘this’ being finding Hank’s heart on the fucking floor. 

When the other officers flood into the room, drawn by Connor’s yells for help, they deduce that Hank was attacked by one of the kitchen droids. 

Connor nods. That makes sense. Except it doesn’t. Connor and Hank were supposed to be helping deviants, not be attacked by them. The logical part of his brain tells him it was probably a misunderstanding; the deviant probably thought Hank was trying to trick them by offering to help. The emotional part is busy replaying the image of his partner attempting to crawl across the floor only to collapse. 

Then a switch seems to flip, and Connor is sent into blissful unawareness. 

An officer hands him a rag. “For the blue blood,” she says.

“What thirium?” He asks but she’s already gone. He wonders for a moment how long ago she left and realizes it's been a while. 

Connor looks around, trying to find the thirium he’s supposed to clean up. Why would there be thirium? He turns slowly, taking in the hallway he’s standing in. Wait, he pauses, when did I get here? Connor shakes the thought off, focusing back on the thirium he can’t seem to find- 

Connor’s gaze falls upon his hands. They’re covered in blue blood. For a moment the man is frozen as he remembers the feeling of Hank’s thirium pump in his hands. It takes a moment for him to realize the memory was his, and that it actually happened. More importantly, he remembers not being able to push the pump back in fast enough. 

Three realizations slam into Connor in that moment;

He’s in shock  
He’s in shock because Hank is dead  
He’s in shock because Hank is dead and it’s his fault

{%*%}

Connor gets driven home by Fowler. He doesn’t remember who told the captain to pick him up or whether or not the man said anything to him, but he remembers getting out of his car. 

Connor’s about to shut the car door when he turns. “What are they doing with his body?” He asks flatly. He doesn’t know why he wants to know, but it feels important and he knows Fowler won’t bullshit him. 

“Cyber life already collected it,” Fowler replies. 

Connor nods and goes to shut the door, but the older man stops him. 

“And Connor, you’re off work tomorrow.”

He looks up sharply. “But-“ he protests. 

“You’re off. No arguments,” Fowler replies forcefully. “You were about to pass out back there, and I know you’ll refuse a therapist so I’m forcing you to take time off. Understood?”

Connor nods before realizing he should answer vocally. “Understood, sir.” He waits a second to see if Fowler had anything more to say before closing the door. 

The Captain watches the young Lieutenant make his way to the door. Fowler sighs when Connor finally manages to unlock the door and slip inside. “What the fuck am I supposed to do with this kid?” He murmurs to himself, genuinely concerned. After a moment of thought he reaches for his phone and pulls up his contacts, clicking on one he hasn’t called in awhile. 

{%*%}

Connor’s behind the crate again. An idea tickles at the back of his mind, telling him it’s the dream again, but drowned out by the roar of the flames. His eyes meet the androids and she stares at him until her face melts away and Connor finds himself staring at Hank. Hank is on fire. Hank is screaming. Hank is looking at him and begging him to do something but Connor can’t move. He can just watch as his partner slowly dies. The room quiets, and the dealers go on as if nothing had happened. 

The warehouse fades to black and Connor knows without checking that hours have passed. He stumbles on his feet and towards the graveyard corner. Her body- no, Hank’s body, had been dragged there. His body was indistinguishable, melted beyond recognition, but the other bodies weren’t. The entire pile of androids were Hank. Hank, Hank, and more Hank.

One by one, they turn to look at him.

“Connor,” they croak, smiling. “Connor we love you.”

{%*%}

Connor gasps as he wakes up to loud knocking. “Hank?” He asks without thinking. His heart sinks as he remembers it couldn’t possibly be Hank; but then who was it? He’d fallen asleep on the couch staring at the ceiling for hours, and now it’s 2am. Who the fuck shows up at 2am, he asks himself before laying back onto the couch. Maybe they’ll leave if he’s quiet enough, he reasons. 

They don’t leave. 

After the fourth knock Connor crawls off the couch and basically stomps to the door. “Who the fuck is it?” He yells, a bit more harshly than needed, at the closed door. 

“Is that how you greet your older brother?” The door answers, unimpressed. 

Connor immediately recognizes the deadpan humor, and groans. He does not need to be worried about right now. He opens the door anyway, murmuring under his breath; “well how was I supposed to know that.” 

“If you answered your phone you’d know.” Conan looks at him from the other side of the door, his face an odd mix of judgment and concern.

“I was sleeping,” Connor defends, his voice raspy. He's suddenly hit by the memory of crying his eyes out last night. 

Conan takes in the blanket still wrapped around his brother’s shoulders, and the unruly state of his hair. “Mmm,” he hums. “Now are you going to hug me or not?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To clear any confusion, Hank died in the radio tower when one of the kitchen androids ripped his thirium pump out.


End file.
